The Beauty of Us Two
by SpeedDemon315
Summary: She was an innocent yet resolute recruit while he was hardened, embittered warrior. She espied his scarred soul and wanted to help him. He wasn’t too certain if he should let her. Amazing on what a few, simple talks can create. /CaellachxAmelia\
1. C: A Glimpse of Something New

**The Beauty of Us Two**

**Summary:** (Support conversations between Caellach and Amelia) She was an innocent yet resolute recruit while he was hardened, embittered warrior. She espied his scarred soul and wanted to help him. He wasn't too certain if he should let her. Amazing on what a few, simple talks can create. (CaellachxAmelia)

**Support C: **_A Glimpse of Something New _

Text:

"Speech"

_Thoughts_

**Flashback**

Songs/Music:

"Wherever I May Roam" by Metallica

"Different World" by Iron Maiden

**Disclaimer: -snorts- Let's not even go there, shall we? …Hm, can I just simply boycott this part; you guys are bright enough to know I couldn't possibly own Sacred Stones and HIM's "You Are The One" (title derives from a portion of the lyrics), ja? **

* * *

"…_And the earth becomes my throne_

_I adapt to the unknown_

_Under wandering stars I've grown_

_By myself but not alone_

_I ask no one._

…_And my ties are severed clean_

_The less I have the more I gain_

_Off this beaten path I reign." _

_**-Wherever I May Roam,**_ Metallica

* * *

Today was just another typical day on the battlefield for Amelia.

After the hard-won assault from the persistent yet waning Frelians, there was time of relaxation and gaiety for everyone. The soldiers' antics shifted slightly on the routine side yet Amelia quickly adjusted to the fighting atmosphere consisting of the other Grado warriors in the campsite.

When she was transferred from Commander Gheb's legion–a gift from the gods for sure!–to a Grado general's platoon, Amelia had been constantly dealing with incessant attacks from the southwestern side of Grado. Though she never met her leader during her several weeks in this new retinue, she heard from the other Grado soldiers who've seen him say they were honorably under the command of General Caellach, also known as the Tiger Eye. She could only hope they were right. She did _not_ want to face another Commander Gheb. One of him was awful enough.

"Hey, girl!" called out one of soldiers, a mercenary of the Fourth Regiment, "The general has orders for you and your squad to complete!"

"Coming!" Amelia answered dutifully, scrambling to collect her bearings and iron lance, "I'll be right there!" Rushing rapidly towards the khaki pavilion the mercenary was pointing at, Amelia briskly headed in the general direction to General Caellach's makeshift quarters. Unaware of the kismet that the Fates and tides of Destiny have contrived, Amelia entered the general's pavilion with the disciplined bravado that had been hammered into her very being during the first few weeks of training in the Grado Imperial Army.

What she did know was to fulfill her duty as a Grado soldier. What she didn't fathom was the path Dame Fortune has designed for her…and a certain former mercenary. Consequently, the journey would begin in a perilous desert, straight into the sloping white dunes of Jehanna.

* * *

The harsh, unforgiving desert wind stirred the sand from the rolling, fallow plains, casting grainy beige particles to whip around the Grado hero as he suavely sauntered through the desert of Jehanna. Caellach covered his eyes to protect them from the desert's ferocity, mumbling a few oaths and cursing Jehanna's terrain with extreme vigor.

"Bah! Why does there have to be so much bloody sand in this accursed place? It's like an imitation of a desert perdition!" Grumbling how forsaken and barren his former home was, Caellach halted briefly to glance behind and observe how his troops were faring. Since most of his men weren't accustomed to traveling in the bleak, suffocating conditions of a desert, many of the soldiers were already suffering from dehydration,–and he **did** warn them to conserve their water sparingly as they marched; there weren't going to be many opportunities of encountering any oases along the way–fatigue, deliria, heat stroke, hyperthermia, and other common symptoms exerted by those who toiled too long in the scorching heat of the blazing desolate sun.

_If those cumbersome ailments keep up, there is going to be no possibility we'll reach Jehanna on time and pose enough of a challenge to the opposing side. Perchance if one of the Pegasus riders can scout for an oasis nearby…._

The Tiger Eye immediately set his eyes unto one of his most prominent Pegasus riders–a Falcoknight who had not yielded to the desert's might nor evinced any signs of failing health. "You, Boelthor!" he barked, motioning for the said Falcoknight to come. Boelthor obeyed and diligently approached his commander, hands gripping the reigns of his Pegasus as he made his way over to Caellach.

"Orders, sir?" came the monotonous response and the Pegasus shook his snowy mane while Boelthor stroke its neck while awaiting his next task.

"I have a crucial assignment for you, Boelthor. My men are weary and ill from the noxious heat of this blasted wasteland and I need to know if there is an oasis close by. I want you to circle the vicinity and locate any oases that appear in your range of vision and calculate how far they are to the troops. Keep a low profile since our foes can be anywhere and I don't want them to catch a glimpse of you. Report back to me in twenty minutes. Understood?"

The scruffy bearded Falcoknight nodded. "Cleary, General Caellach." With not a moment to lose he mounted his Pegasus. In the blink of an eye, the two companions were airborne and gradually transformed into a tiny white speck amid the vacant Copenhagen blue sky.

_Well, that's one issue down. Hopefully he will return with promising news. The last entity I desire to hear from my soldiers is their griping. _

"Uh, excuse me, sir? General Tiger Eye?"

Hearing his general title, Caellach turned then looked down to meet a particularly young and sincere-looking girl staring back at him, a tiny bundle in her hands. Face flushed from exertion and the humidity, the petite blonde hastily wiped a bead of sweat near one of her eyes before presenting the clothed package to him.

"The other soldiers have been passing the victuals around and I heard you haven't eaten for quite some time so I thought…." she trailed off, biting her lip anxiously as a wave of shyness overcame her while under the scrutiny of her superior. Squirming inwardly in the Tiger Eye's analytical discernment, the carefree recruit averted her eyes so they wouldn't be interlocked with the general's intrigued hazel ones.

"What's your name, lass?" Caellach asked her after he cordially accepted the pittance of provisions from his female subordinate.

"Amelia, sir," the young girl replied diligently, slowly lifting her eyes at level with Caellach's nose. Mentally chuckling her dubiety and bashful attitude, the auburn haired general decided to banish Amelia's insecurity and draw her out of her shell. Reaching out and chucking her chin playfully he offered her a frolicsome grin, a roguish glint in his chestnut pupils. She blushed a brilliant shade of cerise and her azuline orbs sparkled giddily at his frisky actions. Caellach leaned forward, only stopping when he was a hair breadth away from her. He could have sworn her face turned scarlet when his nose accidentally touched hers.

"Loosen up, Amelia," the hero whispered cajolingly, "you don't have to be so anxious around me. I may be your commander but it's not like I'm going to lung out and eat you." His words and their unexpected proximity evoked a shaky, nervous laugh from Amelia.

"O-Of course not, General Caellach," she replied demurely, "I understand." Caellach withdrew from her, a satisfied smirk grazing his lips.

"Good. Thanks for bringing me some food; I definitely need something to sustain me with all the plodding through this barren, Godforsaken land." Amelia's flustered features brighten up exuberantly, the same hopeful sparkle he witnessed in her celeste orbs not too long ago.

"You're welcome, sir!" she exclaimed cheerily and Caellach's mouth quirked into a half-smile as he smoothly unfolded the swathed bundle. She was a cutie–make no mistake about that–and rather pretty for her age. Her flaxen hair was cut at a reasonable length, ending up near her shoulders. Caellach silently lauded the female fighter for her practicality. Long hair could be a liability, a complete disaster depending on one's occupation on the battlefield. Judging by her attire and the iron lance strapped to her back, she had to be a recruit, either aiming for a position with the heavy armored knights or agile cavaliers. In her area, short hair would definitely be beneficial.

"Is the food alright?" Amelia's pleasant, questioning voice crushed his reverie and the Tiger Eye nodded quickly prior to shoving another piece of crusty stale bread into his mouth, ignoring the insipid taste the biscuit induced as he munched and crunched.

"The food is satisfactory," he said simply, coercively swallowing the tacky bread down his throat, "don't fret, I've tasted worse." Biting on the biscuit once more, Caellach noticed Amelia brought out her meal as well and began eating along with him. The prospect seemed so strange, so novel yet the notion, the slight, subtle feeling of companionship was oddly comforting.

_She's an interesting lass, that's for sure. I have to admit, she has the loveliest set of blue eyes I've seen so far. _

That was truth. The only person he could think of who could rival the lucidity and scintillation in Amelia's cerulean pupils was General Selena. Yet while the Fluorspar's eyes were more a darker hue, Amelia's reminded him of a clear, unadulterated sky containing the brightest, most scenic shade of blue.

Suddenly possessing the extemporaneous, inexplicable urge to inspect his new female acquaintance, Caellach altogether forgot about finishing his lunch and surreptitiously observed Amelia with irrevocable fascination and attentiveness. He couldn't understand why he was so intent on watching her take small, modest bites from her food and wipe the crumbs or smears off her sun-kissed visage with either a hand or the sleeve of her uniform. A fervid, alien sensation tingled vehemently down his spine, through his very being as Amelia discreetly licked a corner of her lips before resuming to her meager provisions. Desperately wanting to distract his mind–and his emotions, apparently–from this peculiar spectacle, Caellach opted to stimulate another conversation between him and Amelia.

"You're from Grado, right?" he asked. Head bobbing thusly, she swallowed the rest of her aurulent biscuit.

"Yes, I was born and raised in a remote hamlet near the outskirts of the Grado Keep. What about you?"

Caellach arched a bronze, quizzical eyebrow. "What about me?"

"I mean, where are you from? Surely not from Grado."

"How do you know? Perhaps I am." Smiling, Amelia shook her head at the Tiger Eye's cryptic statement.

"I can tell you're a foreigner by your accent. You have a more lilting, jaunty diction compared to the majority of the Gradans, especially with the men."

The ambitious hero gazed approvingly at her, marveling at her astuteness. _Clever little one, she is. Despite her current status and rather humble attitude she certainly has potential for greatness, much like me. That is, if she's willing to embrace the opportunity. _"I hate to admit it but I'm impressed. Very few people have been able to glean that fact." A hint of a blush invaded Amelia's features and she nodded wordlessly, momentarily speechless by the commendation of her leader. "To answer your question, I originated from Jehanna."

Amelia's eyes dilated in surprise and she cursorily scanned the arid vicinity to look at Caellach's native land more closely. "Here?" she queried curiously, sheer wonderment flashing in her round, cyaneous orbs. "No wonder you are so accustomed and erudite to the scorching atmosphere, you have lived here your whole entire life!"

"Aye, but I wish I never did." Caellach remarked solemnly, recalling all the abysmal trials and iniquities the squalid desert coerced him to undergo, snatching everything precious and invaluable to him.

Perplexed by his gruff detachment of his home, Amelia crossed her arms and tilted her head in an imploring manner. "Why? Aren't you proud of your country, of being a Jehannan?"

He snorted disparagingly, an regaled expression emerging on his perspiring countenance. "If I was, do you think I would be battling alongside Grado?"

"…No." she admitted reluctantly, "Yet I cannot understand why. Why do you dislike your homeland so strongly?" In response, Caellach shrugged nonchalantly but complied to her question anyway.

"Once, I was a mercenary, Amelia. From my experiences in that profession I learned how to sever ties to this wretched piece of land and leave Jehanna as an unsavory blotch in my memory, my past. Jehanna was never a kind place to live."

However it wasn't just his days as a petty mercenary that instilled his hatred for Jehanna. No, the despisal was far deeper than anyone could possibly imagine, initially deriving from his childhood, when he was growing into manhood.

**It had been years since the last rainstorm and his village was at the brink of starvation and chaos—**

"But despite all the horrible aspects of Jehanna, you must have found some good qualities here!" Amelia proclaimed fiercely, struggling to fathom why Caellach would detest his country so much, the very region of his birth. In spite of her nation's current byzantine, foraying acts, the blonde recruit continued to pride herself as an adamant Gradan, pleased to march and fight under the colors of her beloved country, home of those precious to her.

"What is so special or wonderful about a land that does naught but steal?"

Startled, Amelia faltered for a second. "P-Pardon?"

In an instant, Caellach was upon her, an undistinguishable glimmer in his now harden cinnamon eyes. His lips were carved into a taut, grim line, amplifying the dour expression creeping on the hero's face. "What you don't know about Jehanna is this damnable place is an avid, coveting monster that will pilfer everything you have to proffer and give _not a single, bloody possession _back." Hardly able to control his leaking emotions or torrential antics, he rashly confronted Amelia and she instinctively took a few steps back, periwinkle orbs rife with dubiety and slight apprehension. Unwittingly he backed up her up against a palm tree, thus halting her skittish retreat. "And just for spite, Jehanna will then demand more of you even if you are left with nothing, nothing more to offer."

He fixated his smoldering gaze unto her resolved countenance yet her tentative azuline orbs rapidly betrayed her inner trepidation and confliction. Fused with frustration, he slammed one hand right beside Amelia's head against the tree trunk, stretching out his arm in an intimidating manner. Caellach heard a soft, hush gasp escape the female's lips and leaning forward he begrudgingly permitted himself to stare intensely into Amelia's twinkling, true blue eyes.

**Eyes imbibed of despair and misery, bereft of all the pleasures and joy in the world. With such woeful eyes they reminded him of hollow vacant shells, wraiths from the netherworlds doomed to wander and wail for all eternity.**

"This deplorable desert will take away all accomplishments you worked so arduously for; snatch away anything you once knew in your life. Jehanna will strip you of everything: Your riches, your home, your food, your family, your dignity, and finally, when there's nothing more to plunder, _your life_."

**His mother's and sisters' lamentations resonated across the barren plains, the tempestuous wind of the imminent sandstorm blinding his peripheral vision as he struggled pitifully to reach them. Father was already dead and they needed him, more than ever. He was the man of house now ergo it was his duty and full responsibility to protect them, at all costs. **

"**Mother! Jeanine! Windy!" he bellowed out raucously, terror bubbling convulsively inside his throat when his surviving family members didn't answer. No, they couldn't be dead–he just heard their strident cries a few moments ago! The desert could not, **_**did not**_** claim the lives of his mother and sisters. They were all he had left in his miserable excuse of existence. **

"**MOTHER! JEANINE! WINDY!" **

"_That_, Amelia, is how Jehanna operates."

Silence engulfed the pair as Caellach's dismal words sank in, his intense scrutiny piercing the center of Amelia's core as she boldly lifted her chin to confront the formidable, acute survey of his blazing tawny eyes.

"So, that's how you perceive Jehanna? A land that simply robs and grants nothing in return?"

"**MOTHER! JEANINE! WINDY!" **

**Only the howling, biting wind replied, its unearthly, malign laughter echoing in his ears, mocking at his misery, his failure of finding his mother and sisters' whereabouts. Deviously whispering to him of everything he could possibly lose. **

Sighing wearily, Caellach nodded albeit never tearing his fervid ogling from Amelia. "Aye, lass. Jehanna can suck you dry, and then demolish your reason for living." A far-off looked suddenly appeared in his pupils, replacing the searing intensity and furor with long compressed sorrow and detriment.

Hesitantly, Amelia inched closer to him, anxiety constricting her heart as she inclined further into Caellach's personal boundaries. Mustering all the courage she was capable of, the blonde recruit lifted her eyes directly up into the Tiger Eye's, azure locked against hazel. Breaths mingling, Amelia half-heartedly ignored the enormous lump weltering in her throat while she neared herself to her general, gradually diminishing the space between them. An inquiring expression washed over the Tiger Eye as he dubiously watched her brazenly accentuate the torrid proximity.

_Is it just me or did the air around here suddenly get hotter? Eh, I think the heat's just getting to me._

"You are haunted," she proclaimed with transparent commiseration, lips quivering a bit as she uttered those foreboding words. Steadily, she reached out and gently rested her hand up to Caellach's face, curiously gleaning the jaded turmoil whirling tempestuously within her commander's smoky, cinnamon pupils.

Just as Amelia's warm fingers came in contact with his skin, a scalding bolt of electricity swept through out his entire body. His senses were irrevocably heightened as her fingertips airily brush against his cheek, his mind more alert than before. A surge of a nameless emotion churned wildly through his veins, boiling and heating his blood up to incalculable levels. For a moment, Caellach truly believed his mind would go insane when the young blonde placed her whole hand against his perturbed countenance and gaze up at him with her innocent, memorizing pavonated orbs.

His mother performed the exact same deed prior to her untimely demise; only her mouse brown eyes were obfuscated, teeming with detriment and despair. Her weathered face held the same forlorn look a convicted man has when he goes marching to the gallows, to his death.

"**C-Caellach, my dear boy…" rasped his mother out, beckoning the said youth forward. Immediately he rushed to her side, noting the sprawled figures of his two sisters a few yards away. With a quick motion of his head in their direction, he asked his mother on their condition. **

"**Are Jeanine and Windy going to be all right, Mother?" **

**A sorrowful wail ruptured from the feeble woman's lips and fresh tears leaked out of her chestnut eyes. "They're dead, my boy. Dead! Ravaged and claimed by the desert, Caellach! Into the celestial embrace of Heaven and the gods! Forever gone!" Her mournful rambling rapidly transformed into hysterical ravings, a solemn crescendo of strident sobs and exigent grieving. **

"**Mother, calm down! You have to control yourself!" Caellach yelled frantically, erstwhile detecting the early signs of desert fever. "We need to get out of this sandstorm and find shelter. I'll carry you!" Caellach's pleas fell to deaf ears. His deranged mother kept on babbling and crying with undeviating woe. **

"**Gone, gone! Two beauties simply snatched from this world, effaced from existence! Mistresses now of Death himself, the Reaper!"**

"**Mother! Mother! You have to calm down! Please, allow me to carry you across the desert while seeking sanctuary. We will bury Jeanine and Windy when the winds die down and the storm disperses." He reached for his mother and made a move to lift her into his arms yet she shrieked like a banshee and then convulsed spastically. Body neurotic and catatonic, Caellach's mother writhed in agony as her mouth resumed the ear-splitting screeches. **

"**DEAD! DEAD! DEAD! ALL DEAD! JUST LIKE THE REST!"**

Eyes like a pair of radiating cerulean stars captured him in their gaze, discerning his tormented, scarred soul with such innocence and humanity Caellach felt his heart pulsating sporadically as he underwent this benevolent examination.

"**MOTHER! You have to stop screaming–for both our sakes!"**

"**Do the gods know no mercy?! Can they spare our meager lives?!"**

**Suddenly, she bolted up half-way, a hair breadth away from Caellach. With both hands she grabbed Caellach by the face and brought him closer to her, eyes alight of utter turmoil and despondency. "Run, Caellach, run," she croaked, eying her grief-stricken son with such deadly accuracy, "leave me to rot in this abhorrent desert that only takes pleasure in thieving from mankind and renders us wallowing in our misery, bereft of live and happiness." **

"What happened to you?" Caellach heard her whisper. His blood turned to ice as the soft, imploring words played with his vulnerable mind, his pulse hammering inside his head with a deafening roar. By the gods, what was wrong with him?!

"**GO, CAELLACH! Leave me to die! Leave me to perish…." **

**He couldn't abandon her, she was last of piece of the family he once had. Tragically, he couldn't shake his mother out of her demented state, out of her trepidation. He was too late to do anything to save her. **

**She was already dead after uttering those final words for him to flee. **

"Do you really want to know?" Caellach grounded out, brushing her hand aside, "Aren't you frighten of what you could possibly find?" He stepped backwards, gradually widening the distance between them. Amelia's eyes widen briefly from his ominous words but shook her head contradictorily.

"Not really…. I…just want to help," she explained softly, her quiet yet resolved voice like rustling satin against the wind. "I mean, isn't that…what comrade-in-arms are suppose to do? Offer support when needed?" Caellach snorted divertingly at this.

"What simpleton told you that?" he queried, a mocking half-smile on his lips, "Because I can completely assure you, assistance from fellow soldiers doesn't always occur in the real world, Amelia."

He knew beforehand he would be shattering her dreams, brutally smashing her rose-tinted hopes and beliefs wrought by those ridiculous, epic legends of heroes and morality, specious tales of good versus evil, compassion, and other subterfuges imbued into the naïve young minds of children at such a tender age. Those idle, morale stories were naught full of sophistry and served no purpose in the harsh, cruel realities of life and the relentless machinations of the wicked, unforgiving world. He heard them all when he was a small lad and what good did those rotten stories serve him? Nothing, save for the bitter vestiges of his demolished, ruined childhood and lurid memories of strenuously surviving Jehanna's adamant iniquities as a nameless, faceless mercenary amid the scorching, ravaging desert that had claimed the lives of his father, mother, and younger sisters.

Amelia shifted disconcertingly, biting her lip uncertainly. "Well, do you believe in any of those tales, General Caellach?"

"No."

"Not even one?"

"Aye."

The guileless recruit stared astonishingly at Caellach, her mind fiercely comprehending his morose remarks. "Do…do you believe in anything?" Her tentative voice barely reached an audible octave when she whispered those soft, beseeching words. Fixing his hard, piercing gaze on Amelia, Caellach's roughen and dynamic rufous eyes had already answered her question before his mouth did.

"What _I_ believe in, lass, is ambition, because someday that relentless aspiration will crown me king."

He failed to tell her his ambitions were only entities he trusted, accredited, or that he never really believed in himself. His ferocious, maddening drive towards full achievement was the reason why he craved to become king–hence he could finally prove his self-worth and blot his paltry occupation as a soldier of fortune out of his past for good.

_But I can never blot _them_ out of my life._

Indeed he couldn't. The deaths of his entire family would forever lurk in the recesses of his mind, permeated in his recollections everlastingly. Yet none of those issues would matter once he is king. He's a general now and that was a few stepping stones away from being initiated as a monarch. From lonely village boy to embittered mercenary of Jehanna and to the Tiger Eye of Grado, he certainly had come a long way. While Jehanna snatched everything away from him, Grado exchanged instead. For his remarkable services he was given a superior rank and the general title of 'Tiger Eye'–with the russet stone as proof of his identity. When he felt the precious gem pressed into his palm, the image of his possible coronation fervently burst into his mind. At the time, Caellach could almost _taste_ the sweetness of success and accomplishment. He had sparingly savored the delight of achieving a position so grand, so magnificent which was usually denied to a person of low birth, someone like him. However, he would change all that, just like he did with his life as a mercenary. He was a Grado general who will one day be king.

That appealing goal was enough for him to believe in.

* * *

"**What **_**I**_** believe in, lass, is ambition, because someday that relentless aspiration will crown me king."**

Who didn't want to be king, queen, or of regal status, of royal blood? When she was very young Amelia would find herself many times wistfully wishing she wasn't simply a commoner, an insignificant human being, but a noble or someone of high, prominent panjandrum. They held all the authority, the potentiality, and the life of absolute luxury and wealth. Any peasant would dream to be in a seat of power, even for a day. For one day they could be in total control, possessing the sovereignty to bend events and people to their will and have the world laid out before them. Such potency, certainly the fleeting image or illusion of such an inconceivable promise, could be exhilarating, addicting–and downright dangerous in some cases.

Amelia sighed wearily; all these ruminants were starting to promote one serious headache and she suspected the arid, torrid sun was the other factor to the discomfort in her skull. If the army just stopped for only a few minutes—

"There's an oasis up ahead, boys, so grin and bear it for the rest of the journey. So no complaining about the heat, the sand, or any illness you oafs managed to catch. If I hear a single whine from anyone I can just end their misery with my axe. Understood, boys?" Caellach's rough baritone brusquely reverberated through out the ranks of Grado soldiers and they merely nodded their heads in unison.

Relieved the rest stop was only a league or so away, Amelia steeled herself to press onward and not collapse until they reached the predetermined oasis. Once the Grado platoon espied the tall, careened palm trees and the lush emerald ocean of grass with sparkling crystal rivulets prevalent through out the serene, utopian environment, the legionnaires broke their lines and rapturously barreled and raced towards the desert paradise. Amelia could barely keep up with the rapid, frenzied pace of the older soldiers as she treaded towards the empyrean haven, stimulated by a parched throat and taxed limbs screaming for water and relaxation.

After what seemed like hours of being smashed and compressed against perspiring, molten bodies in the suffocating, dry air, Amelia finally reached the oasis and promptly dumped her head in the first babbling brook her eyes beheld.

The coolness of water lapping over her face was simply too wonderful for words, too comforting and relieving for description. She avariciously took gulps between breaths, quaffing down the celestial, splendid liquid blithely soothing her aching, ragged throat as she swallowed. Water never tasted _this_ glorious to her before. **Ever**.

"Heh, you're acting like the whole spring is going to vanish if you don't drink fast enough."

Jumping up like a startled rabbit, Amelia whirled around and saw none other than the Tiger Eye himself. "General Caellach," she mumbled, once more averting her gaze down at the thriving, burgeon grass below her, "is there something I can do for you?" Caellach cocked an eyebrow at her skittish, demure behavior but let her shyness slide.

"Nah," he replied thusly, "I just find it humorous to watch you guzzle down water like there's no tomorrow. Then again, you're not the only one. Both adepts and rookies alike are performing the exact same antics. They're quite amusing." The hero spotted a woolly spider crawling towards his foot and without a thought, promptly squashed the insect with the heel of his boot.

Gathering her courage, Amelia lifted her head upward and permitted her azuline eyes to meet Caellach's rather affronting, curious discernment. "You're strange one," he remarked staidly.

Amelia stared at him perplexingly, her head titled sideways as a gesture of puzzlement. "Pardon?"

Sighing, Caellach sat down beside her and began refilling his water casket prior to explaining his peculiar statement. "I said, 'you're strange one', kiddo. You are not quite like the others among the platoon." Dubious whether the comments were a compliment or not, Amelia nodded her head mutely, assaying to perceive where Caellach was heading at. "Don't take it the wrong way, lass. I'm just saying you're different, that's all."

The blonde recruit furrowed her eyebrows skeptically. "Different how?" she questioned. Caellach shrugged but replied anyway.

"Damned if I know. You're just…new." He glanced at her, an unreadable emotion flickering in his cinnamon pupils. "Fresh." Uttering no more, he took a sip from his canteen. Amelia suddenly observed the hero general with keen, fixated fascination while wondering what on earth he meant by those words. Was he implicating he took delight in her company?

"Um…thank you." she replied politely, eyes never leaving Caellach as she spoke.

And his penetrating ones never tore away from hers either.

* * *

"_I thought I had it all_

_I had it all worked out_

_Just what my future held_

_That there would be no doubt_

_But then the card came up_

_And I took another turn_

_But I don't know if it's_

_Fulfillment that I yearn_

_Tell me what you can hear_

_And then tell me what you see_

_Everybody has a different way_

_To view the world."_

_**-Different World, **_Iron Maiden

* * *

Color Glossary:

Azuline- blue

Celeste- sky blue

Pavonated- peacock blue

Rufous- reddish-brown

(Let me know if I missed any other obscure colors.)

Aye, I'm doing a Caellach/Amelia story as well. I had been debating whether or not to write a support conversation of those two (since I'm also doing one of Valter and Selena) so I went, "Oh, what the heck! If I have one with Valter and Selena then there should be one for my second favorite Sacred Stones pairing." Hence, the urge to write this fanfic was born.

Wrapping this little digression up, I shall conclude there will be two more chapters and an epilogue, much like my Valter/Selena story. Also, I am hosting a FE & TSS challenge and if you're interested, you can either check out my profile, my sole forum, or Writer's Guild for further information. If you are a fan of non-canon pairings, than I suggest you should go and investigate the challenge. If not…oh well.

Review, critique, etc but no flames whatsoever. Unless you want the Demon King to come over to your house and bake you some of his famous "meat" pies. Guess where he obtains the "meat", kiddies?

Bis dann!

_:SpeedDemon315:_


	2. B: Sand Burials and Floral Requiems

**The Beauty of Us Two**

**Summary:** (Support conversations between Caellach and Amelia) She was an innocent yet resolute recruit while he was hardened, embittered warrior. She espied his scarred soul and wanted to help him. He wasn't too certain if he should let her. Amazing on what a few, simple talks can create. (CaellachxAmelia)

**Support B:** _Sand Burials and Floral Requiems_

Text:

"Speech"

_Thoughts_

**Flashback**

Songs/Music:

"This Life" by Juli

"The Poet and the Pendulum, V. Mother & Father" by Nightwish

**Disclaimer: Sacred Stones would have been a much different game than the one we are familiar with today. I'm talking about handing over the spotlight to a couple of villains, have them rise to the occasion, and then kick some collective arse. I'll stop there. **

* * *

"_I'm cold, my path is empty_

_This night is grey and cold and hard_

_It holds me tight_

_And it won't give me away_

_I'm caught _

_I'm not waking up _

_And the last lights will soon go out_

_I see myself falling_

_But I won't give up."_

_**-This Life**_, Juli

* * *

Sand. Endless, sweeping mounds of ochroleucous sand complimented with the scalding desert sun pending in the cyaneous sky was all his vision could gift him at the moment. Just sand and putrid bones from beast and man alike.

_And who was the buffoon that said the enemy was near? When I find that idiotic poltroon he's going to be wallowing in his own chagrin once I'm through with him. He'll be a scout no more, the fool._

"Bloody hell, they all can just rot," Caellach cursed and uncouthly kicked a femur from an animal skeleton aside, scanning the torrid horizon for the oncoming army. His body was restless and he itched to affront some of those ridiculous knights of Rausten. Given to Riev's ardent spewing of the theocracy's zeal on righteousness the Raustans sounded like utter half-wits and delusional mooncalves.

"General Tiger Eye!"

Pivoting violently around from the sound of his name, the said general came face-to-face with Boelthor, the same Pegasus rider he sent to search for an oasis. The rugged individual wiped off a trickle of sweat from his swarthy visage after saluting Caellach (who responded half-heartedly) and then commenced with his report.

"The foe is near, General Caellach, barely two leagues ahead of us. From here, we should reach them in approximately ten minutes." An ecstatic beam split Caellach's face in two and he unhooked the silver axe from his lustrous claret shield.

"Music to my ears. Tell the lads the good news so they'll be aroused and ready to engage the enemy at first sight."

Boelthor bobbled his head thusly. "Right away, sir. As soon as possible." Departing from Caellach, the disheveled rider strolled over to the clustered bevy of grumbling Grado warriors with his albicant Pegasus trotting vigilantly behind him.

The Tiger Eye ran his finger lightly against the sharpen blade of his axe, his body tingling with anticipation and exuberance. Finally, the armies would collide and they could hack at each other as long they wanted. Only one side would merge victorious and that side, of course, would be his. He had too much to gain to lose to those trivial, flippant Rausten knights. Like those before them, they solely would serve him as his stepping stones towards greatness. One astounding victory at a time will eventually award him with a crown and the sovereignty over an entire nation.

Dame Fortune could very generous indeed, if one played their cards right.

* * *

Strident screams and detrimental moans of the dying echoed forebodingly through the arid vicinity, steel clashing steel, armor smashing against armor, and flesh chafing flesh. Crimson pools and sanguinary streams seeped through the sand, staining the once pure leucochroic desert with a sinister, definitive garnet hue. Bodies were strewn across the torrid, partly corrugated terrain, behemoth vultures and other birds of prey already feasting on the corpses. The ebony feathered scavengers voraciously plucked the eyeballs from their putrescent victims, their ill-begotten, petulant squawks conveying their ebullience to this newly founded, scrumptious meal.

Caellach dexterously swung his axe around, the deadly silver blade smoothly slicing through armor, flesh, and bone as if his adversary was simply constructed out of pudding. Blood squirted out of the mortal wound like a jocund, cramoisy fountain. His opponent, a well-hewn general, let loose an agonized groan before sagging forward from the painful affliction. The doomed general weakly thrust his lance in the hero's direction yet the Tiger Eye easily evaded the inadequate attack. "Burned out already? How pathetic."

"May the Devil seize your rotten soul!" hissed the Rausten general, seething eyes ablaze and highlighted by the shadows of his visor.

"Heh, I don't think that's ever going to happen," replied Caellach divertingly as he curved his gleaming axe towards his foe's neck, blessing him with a swift, argent death. He didn't spare a single glance at his grisly accomplishment as the general's dismembered head gradually rolled off his blood-soaked shoulders, tumbling onto the fervid white sand.

Trudging through the vast, blotchy terrain of faded khaki and vivid cerise, Caellach scoured the skirmish up ahead, mentally noting his rather lengthy distance from majority of the combat. Victory appeared to be favoring his men, the adamant soldiers of Grado which bodes well for him. Thoroughly pleased with the outcomes of the onslaught, Caellach ambled his way through the scorching desert plains, relishing the succinct moments when a pleasant, refreshing zephyr would fondly encompass him, sporadically cooling his perspiring body down to a reasonable temperature.

Unexpectedly, his right foot crashed into a long bulky mound of sand, promptly halting his haughty gait and inducing a throbbing sore in his toes. Swearing as he stumbled, Caellach whipped his head around to face the terrestrial object that tripped him. Shadowed, badious eyes dilated slightly at the prosaic sight of the manmade landmark, the torrential, tawny gaze of the Tiger Eye glued to the monument of sand and stone. In front of the mound was a roughly shaped tombstone with crudely carven words. Caellach grudgingly approached the headstone, reaching down to half-heartedly trace the blemished epitaph of death:

_Raisa Anderson_

_-My Beloved Mother-_

Caellach jadedly shifted his scrutiny from his mother's tomb towards the two smaller, subsequent graves, the final resting places of his two younger sisters. His eyes grazed over _Windy_ and then, _Jeanine_.The phrase _'my beloved sister'_ was also engraved right under their names.

He rapidly glancing over his left and right shoulder and then double-checked that none of his men were around to bear witness to this sacred, covert spectacle. He wouldn't want his reputation of being an indurated, brusque, and terrifying commander be soiled via a mere act of paying one's respects to the dead. He will have to bang a lot more skulls together if he was ever accused of going "soft".

Once satisfied he was the sole being in the area, Caellach reached in from his pouch and conjured out three beautiful, vibrant desert flowers. Bending over, he placed a placid cliffrose over his mother's grave, then a woolly daisy on Windy's, and lastly, a desert lily on Jeanine's. Those flowers were their absolute favorites. During his times as a mercenary he would annually sojourn to their tombs and set their ideal blossoms beside the gravestones, saying nothing but stare soberly at the burial grounds while ruminating how they were torn apart from him so soon, so ruthlessly. When he left Jehanna and had been promoted, Caellach eliminated his yearly excursions to his makeshift family crypt simply because he was trying to forget and move on in his life. He was a Grado general now and sooner or later, a king. He wanted no such ties to his wretched, pitiful excuse of a homeland and compressing the memories of his family was a sacrifice he was willingly to execute. That is, until pasty-faced Vigarde assigned him to efface Jehanna's Sacred Stone.

"**Caellach. Riev. Shatter the remaining Sacred Stones. Caellach, take Jehanna."**

The hero scowled darkly in remembrance of the unsavory stint, hands clenching into partial fists. Trust the laconic emperor to evoke a decree like that to him. It was those moments when Caellach steadfastly believed that the Demon King really had catatonic, twisted sense of humor and was delightfully in love with irony.

"And so here I am, back in this putrid place. The very same abysmal desert that robbed me of my life and snatch you three away from me." he mused bitterly to the trio of headstones, gripping his axe a little more tightly than usual. "Well, I know this probably sounds completely awful but you know I'm not much of nostalgic man." _Except towards you, Mother, and Jeanine and Windy_. He wanted to correct himself yet found the feat difficult to do so. Although he was no longer the fifteen-year-old boy who saw them perish and the years as a soldier of fortune changed him into the cynical, ambitious man he is today, he fervently wanted to confess to them he still carried remnants of their presences in his heart, his very soul. They were permanently etched in his beating heart, just as their names had been inscribed in stone by his bleeding, calloused hands.

"Ah, hell, forget this. I was never a man with words. You three understand what I was trying to say." Caellach turned his back away from the tombs and returned to the heat of the battle, his axe claiming nearly as many lives as the Jehanna desert snuffs out in a week.

He never noticed during his whole reunion with his family a pair of radiant azuline orbs were watching the whole scene with zealous curiosity. The owner of such lucid eyes felt her heart cracking at the sight of the jaded, embittered man fighting the ghosts of his past and inner demons within him.

_But how can I, a mere soldier, help him?_

Fate would soon have her answer.

* * *

It had been least a half an hour since the onset started and finally, the Rausten troops were showing signs of disconcertment. The rallying cries of the self-righteous brigade had dwindled considerably and the Grado regiment successfully managed to gain more ground than their opponents and were now pushing them back. It wouldn't be long before the Raustans would be sounding a retreat.

"Keep on shoving them back, boys! We got them where we want them!" The gruff yet puckish timbre of the Tiger Eye galvanized the Grado warriors to fight and march on, emboldening them to drive the enemy thither, back to where they came from. They were soldiers of Grado and as soldiers of Grado they were relentless, puissant, and would sacrifice their lives just so victory and glory would be in Grado's name, that their compatriots at home would live to see another day, and their prospering nation would thrive and cultivate aplenty from their valiant self-immolation. They were simply good men heeding their ruler's wishes, that was all. Tragically enough, their arcane, ambiguous monarch was not who he seems to be and was just as manipulated as they were.

All of them were puppets dancing on the precarious, caprice strings of the fiendish puppeteer, the infamous Demon King himself.

Caellach grasped this de facto knowledge that he, unfortunately, was one of those marionettes himself. Yet when the time is ripe he'll shear those damnable strings connecting him to the satanical monster's control and then reign as king without the Demon King hovering over him like a dark, ill-begotten shroud of filth and malignant.

Shrieking, agonized wails and the incessant din of combat snared his focus back to the predicament at hand. Thrusting all notions and retrospections back into the corners of his mind, Caellach advanced and easily sliced through a callow monk assaying to shower a blast of lightning in his direction. Once he felt his axe sinking into the chest of the presently dead monk, the aeneous haired hero ripped his prime weapon out of the carcass and swiftly pivoted on the balls of his feet to lacerate a death-marked rogue sneaking up behind him, hoping to stab him in the back while he wasn't looking.

"This is getting really boring," he muttered after idly tearing his axe from the rogue's cadaver, "can't these stupid Raustans either retreat or surrender? Make my day so much easier." He hacked away at several more oncoming adversaries, kicking disseminated, bloody corpses aside to grant him more ground to beset.

"Who's next?" he roared, humor ringing in his taunting query. A shallow groan reached the hero general's ears and solid thud followed. He quickly rotated his head around to assess what had just transpired. A mop of a blonde hair entered his realm of vision and Caellach espied a young, petite female yanking a slender iron lance from the abdomen of an archer. _Isn't that Am—what's-her-name?_

Lance in hand, the feminine recruit turned back towards the onrushing army, azuline eyes rife with moxie and an astonishingly level of aplomb. For someone her age she carried more intrepidity than one could have expected. Caellach couldn't help it but grin amusingly at the small yet fierce female's tour de force.

Two swordsmen raced towards them, flourishing their blades helter-skelter. One, a myrmidon with spiky violet hair, affronted Caellach while his partner, a wayward thief garbed in a croceate cloak, assailed the young female. The ianthine haired myrmidon slashed his curved sword at Caellach's stomach and the hero maneuvered his torso around to evade the attack and then slammed his axe directly on his opponent's forearm. The myrmidon jerked his arm back before it could have been amputated. Regaining his footing, Caellach belligerently advanced upon his foe, discarding his silver axe so he could unsheathe the steel blade strapped to his belt. Sword clanged against sword and the two men were locked into a parlous bout of swordplay. Sweat trickled down Caellach's brow and he gripped the sword's handle in cool anticipation, wondering whether the myrmidon would confront him first or not. He didn't have to contemplate long, the swordsman came rushing speedily to him, sword positioned in a dangerous angle. Analyzing his enemy's motive Caellach brandish his steel blade in an intricate yet impregnable arch and blocked the assault with his shield. With a flick of his wrist, his sword swept across the doomed myrmidon, leaving an elongate, gruesome gash from shoulder to shoulder and the upper chest as a crimson farewell gift. For the final measure Caellach stabbed the soldier squarely in chest, the edge of his sword bursting through the myrmidon's back.

Like a river of ruby water, blood cascaded from both grievous wounds dealt by the Tiger Eye and modena streamlets vehemently poured out of the dying man's nostrils and mouth. He gurgled briefly, then sagged against Caellach's sword, dead.

Withdrawing his blade from the carcass, Caellach picked up his fallen axe and sheathed his sword back into its scabbard. _Once again, another victory. This is becoming a tad bit too lenient for me; can't these Rausten pansies do anything? _

"General Caellach! Are you all right?"

The said general turned to face the addresser and saw the recruit had dispatched her aggressor as well. Cuts and scraps adorned her lithe frame and she was panting heavily however the sedulous aura encircling her was still present and sharp.

"Amelia, isn't it?" he asked, walking over to his female companion. She nodded, resting her lance at her side. Caellach eyed the various injures littering her body, inwardly noting the degree of attention they each needed.

"You know," he began, "you might want to get those taken care of." He gestured to the bleeding abrasions on her body. Succinctly staring down and realizing what he was referring to, Amelia nodded once more and dug through her satchel in search of a vulnerary.

"So, how've you been?" she asked pleasantly, rummaging through the burlap sack's contents. Slightly taken aback by her endeavor to engage in small talk, Caellach didn't respond immediately.

"I've been…all right," he professed after a few seconds. Amelia smiled jovially at his words as she finally pulled out a vulnerary from her mundane portmanteau.

"That's good to hear." she said cheerfully. Tilting her head back she quaffed the convalescing liquid down and when finished, wiped a drop away from the corner of her mouth. Soon enough, the sizzling sonance of wounds being mended and skin being knitted back together permeated the air, marking a sheer indication that the healing potion was running its course and doing its job.

"Is the battle over, General Caellach?" she questioned, motioning towards the Grado Imperial Army overwhelming the Rausten force. From where he was standing, it appeared that the Raustans were fleeing.

"By the looks of it, aye," answered the Tiger Eye thusly. He glanced back at Amelia, who wore a look of relief on her flushed, weary visage.

"We won…." she whispered breathlessly, "We managed to defeat them."

Grunting noncommittally, Caellach just slipped his axe back into his dented shield and walked back to camp, with Amelia tailing right beside him. Funnily enough, he didn't mind her shadowing him so much. Her presence was rather comforting…_soothing_ now that he thought about it.

Frowning, Caellach brushed the inane thought away and attempted to ignore the sparkling, invigorating mein belonging to a certain sandy haired soldier flanking him. He was still executing the strategy even after they reached encampment, after she flashed him a beam so amiable that the blissful smile titillated his blood and ardently stirred foreign feelings inside him and _after _her cerulean orbs gazed at him with such sincerity and intense longing which abruptly made his mouth dry.

"Be happy, Caellach," was all she said to him before leaving to do her portion of the scouting. Coercing what felt like sand down his throat, Caellach dubiously called out to her:

"Be careful, lass. Don't wander off."

The celestial, appeasing smile returned and Amelia nodded affirmatively.

"I won't, Caellach. I won't."

* * *

He specifically told her not to scout around the campsite too far. And look where her carelessness lead her: Captivity.

"Heh, we got a small fry right here," mused a sordid Rausten cavalier, "is Grado now sending _children_ to fight us?" He sniggered at his disparaging joke as he finished tying the ropes around Amelia's wrist. Tenaciously fidgeting against her bonds, she roughly kicked the man in the shins as hard as she feasibly could. He swore, stumbled back, and then regained stability. A spark of pure, raw contempt exploded across his face and he approached the entrapped recruit with excessive hostility.

"Think you're so clever, you little hussy!" he snarled, raising his hand up in preparation to strike her. Amelia squint her eyes shut and tensed up to possibly alleviate the caustic sting of the soldier's impending blow.

"Quinn, leave the hostage alone. She's not worth our time." chided one of the said man's fellow Raustans, flipping a vellum page from his light tome.

Grumbling a string of oaths and insults directed towards her under his breath, the soldier called Quinn shot one last glower in Amelia's direction and stormed off. Another soldier came by to tether her to their supply wagon. "Try and keep up, girl," he sneered prior to mounting his horse and rousing the remaining men of the platoon to pack their bindles and move out. As if on cue, the wagon haphazardly lurched forward and Amelia went along with it. Glimpsing back at the horizon behind her, Amelia prayed with all her heart that her regiment would catch wind of her and a few other Grado soldiers' dismal predicament. _Thank the gods my scout partner managed to slip away unseen by the Raustans. Hopefully he'll deliver our plight to General Caellach and the rest of the Imperial Army and they will come and save us! _

"Hurry onward, brave and valiant warriors of Rausten! We can't let those Grado bastards discover us!" hollered the Raustan commander, a veteran paladin with a _retroussè_ nose and fairly pointy mustache. Dutifully, the troops rapidly cleared the campground and started marching. Vigils assigned to the Grado soldiers roughly prodded and hassled Amelia and the other Grado prisoners along, compelling them to keep up with the erratic, fast gait of the Rausten army.

As they tarried on, Amelia wonder what would become of her, her fellow warriors, and the fate of General Caellach's legion still camped a few leagues away from here, completely unaware of her dire situation. Clasping her hands together in a final act of desperation and reassurance, Amelia muttered a silent prayer to the gods, imploring for their assistance and divine intervention.

_Please help us, gods. Send a sign or anything that will tell us that we shall be rescued. Anything! _

For who knows what the enemy could have in store for her and the other Grado captives.

* * *

Caellach couldn't decide which was more confounding: The way the youth burst into his tent without warning (he truly would have **killed** the lad if he was in the middle of undressing) or the news he brought.

"General Caellach, the Rausten army we defeated today has taken many of our men captive! They're abandoning their campsite as I speak and are relocating somewhere else." the young scout reported feverishly, his angelic mulberry eyes round and frantic.

Releasing a breath of frustration, Caellach raked a hand through his auburn hair. "How many?"

"About seventeen, sir. One of them is Amelia, my scout partner. At the cost of her own freedom she warned me of the Raustan dogs' appearance and was able to distract them while I ran back here with this message." he replied automatically.

Caellach froze at the mentioning of Amelia's name and felt his body turn numb. Time seemed to have stopped and all he could hear at the moment was the rigorous pulsating of his sporadic heartbeat. He knew he shouldn't care at all about the imprisoned men–it was their own sorry fault they were captured–but a part of his mind was roaring in protest of concept that he would abandon _Amelia_ to her unknown, flagrant kismet.

_Will you do it? Are you going forsake her? Are you just like Jehanna, indifferent to everything and everyone? _

Inwardly blocking his conscious, the Tiger Eye grinded his teeth together and already was curling one hand into a taut, rigid fist. Why should _he_ care about a mere _girl_?

_But she's not just "a mere girl". She can see through your rough-hewn mask and you like her for that. _

"Your orders, General Tiger Eye?"

This was it. It all came down to his decision whether to go after the retreating Rausten army and take back the prisoners or leave his men to their fate by waiting for whatever the enemy wanted with them. Sighing exasperatedly, Caellach turned to the awaiting lad, his mind finally made up and the portentous dictate at the tip of his tongue.

_I better not regret this in the near future. God's wounds, I'm probably going daft–no thanks to the lass. _

"Inform the captains to rouse their men and get into their stations. We're going to pursue those damned Raustan gnats and squash them once and for all."

* * *

"_Be still, my son_

_You're home_

_Oh when did you become so cold?_

_The blade will keep on descending_

_All you need is to feel my love_

_Search for beauty, find your shore_

_Try to save them all, bleed no more_

_You have such oceans within_

_In the end_

_I will always love you."_

_**-The Poet and the Pendulum, V. Mother & Father**_, Nightwish

* * *

Color Glossary:

Ochroleucous- yellowish white

Cyaneous- sky blue

Albicant- white

Leucochroic- white or pale colored

Cramoisy- crimson

Argent- silver (or white)

Badious- chestnut colored

Azuline- blue

Aeneous- bronze

Croceate- saffron colored

Ianthine- violet colored

Modena- crimson

(Let me know if I missed any other obscure colors.)

Well, there you go. Chapter two is done and over, which means the _real_ fun commences in the next chapter (what I mean by 'fun' is a major battle scene! Huzzah!). I have pretty good idea what will occur the last support conversation and then in the epilogue so hopefully the last two chapters of this story and **My Damned Soul Needs Fire, My Damsel Breaths Fire** will be out as soon as possible. With no school to restrain my time, it can be done.

Just as a side note, Raisa means 'rose' in Yiddish. Thought it fitting since Caellach gives his mother a cliffrose. And yes, the challenge is still around. You can still participate if you're intrigued and have nothing else better to do.

You know my policy: Review, critique, fave, alert, but no flames. Flamers shall be sojourned by a Demon King with his notorious fruit cake. Fear the Demon King and his impregnable fruit cake! One bite and all your teeth come falling out.

_:SpeedDemon315:_


	3. A: In My Time of Need

**The Beauty of Us Two**

**Summary:** (Support conversations between Caellach and Amelia) She was an innocent yet resolute recruit while he was hardened, embittered warrior. She espied his scarred soul and wanted to help him. He wasn't too certain if he should let her. Amazing on what a few, simple talks can create. (CaellachxAmelia)

**Support A: **_In My Time of Need_

**A/N:** Chapter title is from the lyrics of "Angels" by Within Temptation. Nuff said.

Text:

"Speech"

_Thoughts_

**Flashback**

Songs/Music:

"Cadence of Her Last Breath" by Nightwish

"Rainmaker" by Iron Maiden

**Disclaimer: Yes, yes, I own the Sacred Stones. This is just a hobby of mine. …Lord, I hope all of you who just read that knew I was being sarcastic. **

* * *

"_A Loner longing for_

_The cadence of her last breath_

_Put to rest all that's not life_

_Drink for beauty and fill my blank page_

_Sometimes a dream turns into a dream_

_A Loner longing for_

_The cadence of her last breath."_

_**-Cadence of Her Last Breath,**_ Nightwish

* * *

The lurid, jacinthe flames flickered jocosely in the middle of the campsite teeming with Rausten soldiers, the ciders and sparks hurtling outward like miniscule flammeous fairies, cavorting against the swift, brisk evening wind. The sun had set and night was casting its arcane, elusive cloak of darkness over the land, evoking the shadows and its creatures to come out and play.

Amelia dourly watched the Rausten knights gorge themselves with grog and gamble their livelihoods away, the hearty whoops, cheers, and groans permeating the crisp, gloaming air. The élan of the Rausten army was quite a contrast to the dejected, harrowed mood of the Grado legionnaires.

"No one will be coming for us."

Amelia jerked her head towards the soldier who had uttered such a pessimistic, ill-begotten manifesto. She faced a rugged, ill-kept Falcoknight with a scruffy beard and matted cinereous hair whose face was caked with grim and sweat.

"What do you mean? Surely someone from our regiment will come and rescue us." Amelia replied dubiously, vainly tugging at the bonds around her wrists.

The Falcoknight snorted coldly at her firm belief. "Do you really think so, lass? Do you truly believe our general, the mighty Tiger Eye, will even _bother_ to help us out of our dire predicament?" He eyed her sharply, the glacial glare slicing her to the bone was just as effective as his caustic words. "I have been with that man from the start, lass, and if there's one fact I learned from him, it's this: He cares naught for his fellow man. He'll use anyone he deems a tool to help further his ambitions and then steps all over them once he is through with them."

Amelia shook her head vehemently to contradict his opinion of their Grado commander. "That's not true," she retorted fiercely, recalling the haunted glimmer in his hazel eyes she had witnessed from their first encounter, "General Caellach _will_ come for us. He will. I know it."

A half-entertained snicker rose from the morose Falcoknight and he incredulously stared at Amelia as if she had sprouted fangs, a tail, and five grotesque heads. "You're really naïve, aren't you, girl?" he remarked jocularly and for the second time, Amelia shook her head.

"No, I am simply saying you don't know General Caellach enough to so quickly dismiss the thought of him coming to our aid. I believe he will fight to retrieve us." All amusement died from her compatriot's eyes and his lips curled into an ugly sneer.

"Listen, brat, I have been in this war far longer than you have and also been under the Tiger Eye's command _way_ before you come waddling along out of your diapers. I fathom how this venturous man operates and can guaranty you he **will not** come. Not now, not ever." He turned away from her, fully esteeming that the conversation was over and he could at least get some shut-eye. He couldn't be more incorrect.

"You're wrong." Amelia's lucent, assertive voice washed over the disdainful Falcoknight, aggravating his already grated nerves. Fortunately for the female, he just clamped his jaw shut and promptly ignored her. Closing his eyes, the Falcoknight uttered his final words to Amelia before he was taken into the land of Nod.

"You are too innocent for you own damned good. Don't you know those Rausten pigs are wagering to see who gets to bed you first?"

Panic seized Amelia's heart and she whirled herself around to face the curmudgeon once more. "What?!" she gasped horrifically, hardly grasping what he had just informed her. "You must be jesting!"

Her only reply was a deep, resonating snore.

Despair and despondency settled over the blonde fighter like a palpable pall and Amelia strenuously battled against the sense of hopelessness clawing its way into her mind. There had to be an alternative, a misunderstanding of some sorts! Why on earth would her adversaries want anything from her, a simple, plain girl of Grado?

"Majority of them are starving men bereft of womanly companionship. The Rausten soldiers miss the presence and touch of a female, friend or foe. When they saw you, half of them probably went completely mad with desire." proclaimed a man sitting across from her as if he read her mind and decided to offer her an explanation. His half-lidded eyes were rimmed with smudges and dark circles and he shifted unconsciously in his stained subfusc robes, seemingly assaying to achieve some levels of comfort in captivity. Amelia gauged him warily, her whole body rigid and alert at his ominous message.

"Are you saying that _they_ (she motioned to the reveling Raustans with a head tilt in their direction) will—" She paused, nearly choking on the next two words about to tumble from her mouth, "compromise me?" The taxed shaman (she estimated this by his monotonous, sober attire) simply nodded, utter sympathy etched on his waning visage. Amelia tensed briefly, and then slumped against the wooden post in resignation, bitterly enraged at her incapability to save herself from the unsavory, impending position.

"I have to escape," she murmured softly yet decisively, "I can't allow that to happen." She glanced back to the shaman, whose tired eyes were suddenly open wide and his thin lips bore a trace of small grin.

"There maybe a chance for you, that is, if you're willing to take a couple of risks." The shaman's salving declaration of a possible flight thrilled Amelia like never before. She leaned as nigh as her bondages would permit and waited with much anticipation for the shaman to elaborate.

"What's the plan?" she queried curiously, azuline eyes abound with hope. The shaman's inscrutable smile broadened at Amelia's sedulity and imitated her actions, glancing side to side to reassure himself no enemies would overhear them.

"Henrik right next to me has a dagger in his left boot that the Raustans failed to detect and confiscate. He has agreed bestow his weapon to whoever is selected amongst us to flee first." the shaman began placidly, his tenor hushed and barely above a whisper.

"'Whoever is selected'?" Amelia repeated dubiously, raising one unexpected eyebrow. Her fellow-in-arms nodded.

"Henrik mostly come up with the stratagem but all the men here agreed on the person who should be the first to escape and tell General Caellach about our situation. We unanimously decided you definitely should be the first one leave." His lackluster, metallic eyes seemed to bore into the center of her core, almost daring her to protest. The words, the lilt of his voice seemed so final that it seemed she didn't have a say in the matter whatsoever.

"But…why me? I mean, I'm hardly suitable for the task and barely experienced enough to even—" The shaman silenced her with a languid wave of his hand.

"None of us here are getting raped and something tells me you, out of all us, can convince General Tiger Eye to assist us if he isn't already hastening to our rescue." A derisive snort echoed from the slumbering Falcoknight, causing Amelia and the shaman to snap their heads in his direction.

"What is it _now_, Boelthor?" he asked wearily, nearly at the end of his rope with the distrusting soldier.

"Oh, nothing," came the muffled reply, "it's just I find your profound confidence in the Tiger Eye aiding us most absurd." The dark spell caster across Amelia stiffened and then his murky eyes flared momentarily with indignant fire before he opened his mouth to remark acridly on his comrade's comment.

"You know, Boelthor, your nihilism is simply the most irritating entity I was ever forced to listen to and I believe I speak for the rest of the soldiers when I say we're sick and tired of your fatalistic viewpoints!"

This jarred Boelthor out of his drowsy sleep and he glowered unhappily at the steaming shaman.

"You're going daft as well, Rox? We all are vulture fodder here and you know it! Why place the remnants of our fading hopes on a general who doesn't give a flying fig about anyone but himself?"

"Defeated already, Boelthor?" jeered Rox the shaman. Acutely aware she was no longer apart of the discussion, Amelia sank back to her place, wondering if the plan would commence or not. Prior she could speak up and interrupt the two squabbling males, the rogue next to Rox caught her attention by kicking his dagger straight towards her boots.

"Here yah go," he announced cheerily, sounding like they were on a vacation rather than in imprisonment, "inch the dagger to your hands with your feet and the rest of the body and let yours hands to the rest." The rouge she presumed to be Henrik placidly guided her movements so the dagger reached her mildly fettered hands as quickly as the weapon could. Once the hilt touched the palm of her hands Amelia aggressively tackled the roped with great relish as she sawed her way through the scratchy, thick ropes to the best of her abilities. Rox and Boelthor were still quarreling when her hands were free and she began working on her ankles.

"Are they always like this?" she quietly asked Henrik so she wouldn't evoke much fixation upon herself, especially from the Rausten soldiers. Judging what she had been hearing in the distant so far, there were still plenty of them fighting over the bets as who would be the man to deflower her first. And she wanted them to be preoccupied as much as possible.

Henrik sighed heavily. "Unfortunately, yes. They're almost like two brothers, always censorious of the other. Forget about them, just focus on making your getaway." When he finished, Amelia's work was complete and the ropes laid around her in luteolous, frayed swirls. Step one of her liberation was done. Now she had to get out of the enemy's camp before one of the wardens noticed her absence. The sole female in a scattered group of prisoners was quite easy to spot, no matter how many men she was amidst.

_Okay, you're free; now go find your weapons and then steal a horse when none of the Raustans are around! _

After Henrik wished her luck and speed on her journey, Amelia cautiously snuck away from the rest of the captured men and furtively treaded to the horses and the artillery. Scanning the disseminated weapons, Amelia rapidly snatched up an iron lance similar to her own and a vulnerary. A solitary iron sword ensnared her scrutiny and unable to resist temptation, the blonde legionnaire grabbed the desired blade. Since she was no longer a mere recruit but instead a newly transformed cavalier she could be exposed to the art of swordplay. The caliber of wielding a sword was still premature to her however she had learned the rudimentary, essential skills a couple of days ago, prior to her capture. Today could very well be her first day of brandishing a sword in combat.

Strapping the blade and sheath to her hip, Amelia silently walked towards a horse separated from the rest of the steeds, the lone destrier absentmindedly staring at tiny bug in the khaki sand. "Sssssh," she whispered when the horse realized her presence and gazed at her suspiciously, "I'm not going to hurt you. Just hold still and allow me to mount you—" She fluidly reached for the reins, despite the fact inside she was trembling from head to toe in fear of being discovered by one of the guards. Much to her relief, the horse didn't flinch or neigh raucously in self-defense when she grasped a hold of the bridle, the creature simply continued to gauge her unblinkingly. Deeming the moment was now or never Amelia swiftly swung up on the saddle and cut the stallion's tether with the tip of her lance, releasing them both. With a kick of her heels, the brunneous stallion bolted into a trot and then immediately into a canter by the perpetual urging of Amelia.

She had managed to garner a myriad of leagues before a modicum of the Rausten soldiers finally realized that she was missing from the captives.

* * *

Conscience could really be a pain in the arse sometimes.

_I must be insane. I literally, wholly must be insane, just like that freak Valter–only he's much worse. Much worse. _

While his perturbed thoughts brewed hectically inside his head, Caellach assessed his platoon's progress and how the tracking was coming along. From what he managed to accumulate by the Raustens' trail in such a short time span, he could confirm the troops of righteousness and justice did not possess an inkling of masking their footpath from enemies. They were in hurry, he perceived, and terribly sloppy in the process. Caellach nearly snorted in disbelief at the foe's inefficiency. Can **any** of the frivolous, trite fools conceive how to _actually_ fight and win a battle, especially in a harsh barren desert?

_And to think I lost seventeen soldiers to those weak-kneed morons. Mother Irony sure enjoys mocking me. _

As if that was the only entity taunting him.

Caellach growled inwardly, irked that he reminded himself once more why he concurred in rescuing the prisoners. He consistently retold himself that the notion was only to restock his manpower for the massive, pending fight with Prince Ephraim and his squadron and had nothing to do with a certain azure eyed, blonde haired female whose salving smile kept plaguing his mind, much to his inner frustration. Admitting he was mostly pursuing the fleeing Rausten troops to rescue some lass he had the pleasure of chatting with would be like admitting he _cared_ about her and in his mind, that concept was purely ridiculous. He just needed the rest of his men back so he could battle Ephraim and his forces more sufficiently. There was nothing else to the simple, strategic equation.

"Uh, General Caellach, sir?" called out one of his remaining Falcoknights, "A rider approaches, sir."

Snapping his head towards the bearer of such interesting news, Caellach stolidly inquired, "Is the rider one of our own?"

The young Falcoknight squinted and didn't respond for a few seconds. After a minute's worth of discernment, the winged rider diligently answered, "Yes, I believe it's one of our cavaliers. He–or she–is heading this way, and fast, too."

Inwardly noting to ask the rider how he escaped on arrival, Caellach ambled towards the path the Falcoknight was pointing at, hoping the oncoming soldier will have any valuable information regarding the pathetic Raustans. He heard the vociferous hoof beats of a horse and spied the horseback rider approaching him and his men with rigorous effort and speed. As the cavalier loomed closer and closer, Caellach could finally glean the identity of the nameless, peculiar rider. He received the shock of his life when he saw Amelia galloping towards him and the rest of the army, her flushing cerise visage imbibed with sweat and unbound perseverance as she jolted curtly on the reins and the horse instantly halted in its tracks.

"Behind me…several Raustan men…can't recall how many," Amelia announced breathlessly, clutching the saddle of her stallion fiercely, "They…should be here…very soon."

"Easy there, lass," Caellach told her, trying to get her haphazard breathing under control, "I don't want you fainting on me before the skirmish even starts just because you didn't receive enough air." He turned back to his men, his imperative, rough-and-ready nature descending over them.

"All right, boys, get into your position at once! The enemy is near and unaware of our presence so now is the perfect opportunity to give them an ambush!" A roar of approval surged across the Grado soldiers' ranks and the men scrambled across the arid terrain, finding secluded spot behind, underneath, or beside a dun or sand mound. Amelia followed Caellach into a recently dug fosse and slowly coaxed her horse into the shallow crevice.

"How did you escape?" Caellach asked her once they were settled in the trench. His silver axe was ready to be drawn while her lance was leveled for a fatal strike.

"I had some help from a couple of soldiers." she confessed sheepishly and the stallion snorted, as if to confirm the female cavalier's statement. "You have to rescue the others!" she added ardently, staring at him beseechingly with those enthralling, lovely periwinkle orbs. He so awfully wanted to rend himself away from her enchanting scrutiny, ignore the desperate plea in her mellifluous voice that distinctively reminded him of raindrops gently and rhythmically pelting against satin that subsequently wrapped its beguiling, alluring spell over his mind like a nebulous, stuporous fog of uncertainty. Closing his eyes furiously and grinding his teeth together, Caellach strenuously compressed all of emotions concerning Amelia and blotted the foreign impression altogether.

"After we deal with these wretches you can show us the road to the Rausten camp." he replied indifferently, attempting not to look at her while he spoke. Unfortunately, due to curiosity on his part, he failed miserably. The Tiger Eye tilted his head slightly in her direction and witnessed the sincere, tender smile that bedazzled and captivated him simultaneously on Amelia's lips, her heart in her cerulean eyes.

"Thank you, General Caellach," she said benignly, "I knew I could rely on you."

The said hero grunted, not at all certain how to react or respond to such a sentimentally blunt, frank remark. "Uh, you're welcome," was all he could think of to say in return.

The ambush transpired better than anyone imagined. The Rausten dispatches certainly weren't expecting a gigantic influx of Grado soldiers springing out the ground like meerkats or beset tantamount to the surreptitious pouncing of avid trapdoor spiders. The search party chasing Amelia did not stand a chance against the mighty, august Grado soldiers; the element of surprise was so craftily designed and precise that the defeat of the Rausten detachments was a fairly lenient victory for Caellach and his warriors. The whole group was completely effaced, not a single trace was left of the opposing regiment save for their contorted corpses scattered about raging, sanguinary desert, akin to broken, worthless dolls discarded by a small child for someone else to pick up.

Amelia solemnly cleaned the carmine blotches on her sword, wondering if the other Grado captives would be all right and safe even if the slaughtered Raustans didn't return with her in tow. Would the enemy decided right then and there to march all the hostages together and then proceed butcher them mercilessly as retribution for their grisly, easy triumph over them? Banishing the harrowing, unsavory idea from her brain, Amelia resumed her cleansing and tackled the blood stains with exigent vim. She _refused _to allow her fellow compatriots to be massacred alike pigs in a slaughterhouse, dying in a lone, massive grave with no one to properly honor and bury them one by one. They helped her and now she could return the favor.

"What is on your mind, lass?"

Startled slightly, Amelia snapped her head back to see speaker standing behind and smiled softly when the person's face came into view. "Hello to you too, General Caellach." The said general smirked, his way of acknowledging her greeting. "If you really want to know, I'm just pondering about the rest of the Grado prisoners of war and their condition. What if the commander of the Rausten army concludes to execute them on the spot and we arrive too late? They were so hopeful in being rescued…." She trailed off, new conjectures and prospects taking root.

"Or worse, what if they force them to fight against us or—"

"Amelia, enough."

Amelia heeded Caellach's command and abruptly stopped her rant. She opened her mouth to apologize for her silly behavior but she was hindered from doing so for the Tiger Eye had raise up a hand as an imperative gesture for her silence so he could talk.

"None of those outcomes will happen," he told her staidly and she cocked her head inquisitively, her entire visage imploring for a further explanation. "I mean, we'll come to their support before the Raustan pansies even _dare_ let the notion of permanently damaging our men cross their feeble minds." Ebullience glowed all around the wheaten haired cavalier and prior he could prevent her, she enveloped Caellach into a friendly, grateful embrace.

"I realize I already said this to you earlier but I want to repeat it. Thank you, General Caellach. Thank you very much." He tried shrugging her words off, as if his act of retrieval was merely a trifle, a triviality not worth lauding over.

"Eh, it's nothing. Don't worry about it." Honestly, why was he keenly intent to keep that promise with her and so tenacious in fulfilling the vow? Why did he strenuously not want to botch this mission up and successfully retrieve each and every of those ridiculous soldiers of his, just so he would be spare to see the bitter disappointment and sorrow lacquered in her celeste eyes? Did his incongruous behavior derive from those nameless, foreign emotions churning convulsively inside him whenever she was near or he unintentionally conjured her image on a whim? Or was his ambiguous nature due to the fact she deeply trusts him when no one had ever offered their faith to him voluntarily after he become a mercenary and then the infamous Tiger Eye?

"We should move quickly. There's no telling how long the Rausten fools will start miss their measly search party." he told her bluntly and as a reflex, Amelia nodded impassively.

"Yes, sir. I'll inform the others." Sheathing her sword back into its respectable scabbard, she murmured a farewell and traversed to the rest of the army to announce his mandates.

Caellach couldn't help it but subtly wished she had flashed another one of those breathtaking, genuine smiles of hers prior to attending her duties. "Ah, hell, what's up with me?" he grumbled, furiously shoving his axe into the holster of his claret shield, "Going weak and pitiful over the mere smile of a female. Bah, I think the blasted heat's getting to me."

* * *

Amelia directed them down the path to the Rausten bivouac, each soldier cautious not to produce an audible sound while they clandestinely crept towards the dysfunctional, rowdy Raustans who were still gambling or playing idle games to pass time. A sober, quiet group separate from the rambunctious revelers distinctively exhibited that they were the captured Gradans. Concealed by the rolling, slopping hills of the Jehanna desert and the shadows of the night, Caellach proudly noted none of the enemy sentries had detected their arrival or anything unsettling. Albeit his men weren't completely silent through out the journey (however, the soft, sandy terrain definitely muffled any overly plodding footsteps) the hero had yet to see a Rausten sentinel glance or squint in their direction. Really, just how imbecilic and oblivious could those justice-loving mooncalves be?

"So there they are," he whispered thrillingly, eager to dismember of couple of limbs with his axe, "just waiting to be decimated." In the corner of his eyes he noticed out of all people, Amelia was crouched on his left flank, periwinkle orbs persistently fixated on the Grado prisoners and then at the foe, her focus zooming in on their activities.

"Whose going to recover the soldiers?" she asked him in a hush voice, tearing her inspection away from her targets and cast her discernment onto her commander. He grunted, clearly haven't thought about that.

"You can be in charge of that task, if you want," he replied stoically, "they probably prefer you rather than me or anyone else around here."

"Oh, I doubt that's the case," she objected, causing Caellach to snort incredulously. "What? I'm serious!"

"So I am," Caellach remarked, ceasing the derisive laughter, "but setting all that aside, I have a question. You are barely acquainted with the hostages yet you so implacably desire to abet them. Why?" He cocked his head at her, thoroughly intrigued to her answer.

At first, Amelia blinked at him, promptly caught off guard by his direct and somewhat personal inquiry for her. However, her bedazzlement was short-lived and the nonplussed expression melted away to reveal a transparent, doughty attitude.

"Because, Caellach, they are my fellow countrymen and even though I may not know them very well or they hardly can recollect my name, we still are one of the same. We are soldiers of Grado and we never forsake each other." Amelia explained simply, reciting the words as if they had been engrained into her mind after hearing several repetitions of a speech based on national pride.

Caellach didn't have the heart to tell her that was bloody lie, that Gradans, Jehannans, Renais', Frelians, Raustans, Carcinans–practically everyone–had abandoned each other and their fellow men for one reason or another. Since the epoch of humanity man deserted man and the eternal, damned cycle would proceed to revolve as long humans continued to roam the earth.

"Whatever you say," he muttered, holding his tongue from all the caustic comments spewing inside his head. Nonplussed, Amelia gauged him with meticulous care, her dissecting azuline eyes staring up at him as if they _knew_ he was tempted to contradict her explanation. "What?"

Amelia shrugged her shoulders dubiously. "I was merely wondering if Jehanna had a vow similar to Grado's, you know, like 'always look out for your fellow man' or something tantamount to that." A quiet snigger escaped Caellach's lips and he shook his head divertingly, unable to mask his humor in her words.

"I was a mercenary once, remember? No one 'looked out' for us, Amelia; we had to do that all on our own. It was every man for himself and that little adage wasn't just for the mercenary business, the maxim also extended to every denizen of Jehanna. When you leave in a barren, avaricious desert independence is strongly encouraged and a potent essentiality to a Jehannan lifestyle. That is, if you're not among the royals or nobles. They have _everything_."

He sighed, but strangely, out of relief, like an oppressive, mammoth weight had been crushing down on him for all these years and by his small, paltry confession, the pressure suddenly crumbled away, releasing his heart from the throbbing constriction and freeing his shoulders from the anonymous burden he bore since he was a young, bereaved lad. The feeling…it was magnificent.

The same expression of commiseration flashed across Amelia's face and she gently placed her hand on the crook of his arm, her emotions blazing so truly in her cerulean eyes Caellach could not fathom on what to make out of it. Why was she being so…compassionate towards him? Was she going to trap him in another embrace?

"I see…" she whispered, guileless pavonated eyes puncturing the core of his very being as she spoke, "I think I understand now."

He quirked an eyebrow, bemused via her cryptic proclamation. "What do you mean, lass?"

"I mean, I can sort of comprehend the trials you were coerced to undergo and molded you into who you are now. Those tombs you visited earlier…who rests there?"

At her seemingly innocuous question, Caellach felt his blood turned to ice. She had beheld him by the graves, the buried remains of his mother and sisters? _How is that possible, I checked not once but twice to be certain no one was around! How could I overlook her?!_

"What are you rambling about?" he rasped out requisitely, clasping both hands rigorously on his trusty axe. He averted his intense gaze away from her, wroth bubbling precariously inside him. For some eccentric, unspecified reason he was unable to look at her. No matter how dexterous he was at fixing and strengthening his cracked mask or how fuming he was towards her for witnessing the sacred, private spectacle meant for only him and his deceased kinfolk, Amelia's periwinkle eyes could defy all logic and rationale and if given enough time, possibly strip him all of the guises and subterfuges he had constructed ever since the destruction of his childhood, to obstruct others from gleaning his true nature. He veiled his weaknesses by enhancing and multiplying his strengths, causing himself to appear near invincibility. Yet he was human, a mortal, hence he possessed such hindrances. Notwithstanding there was nothing he could feasibly do about the matter.

But now _she_, this Amelia lass, was beginning to uncover all he worked so arduously to conceal, to protect from everyone around him, anyone who was deemed not a friend or a foe–someone would most likely mock and jeer at his hidden, subtle devotion for his departed kin. Amelia wasn't like that, he fathomed, but having her descry him was corrosively unsettling, in the least.

"I'm referring to those tombstones. You know, the burial mounds you placed a flower on each one."

Demon's breath, she did see him by the tombs of his kin! She _actually _bore witness to a transaction he would deem verboten for anyone except him to behold.

"Yeah, so?" he replied gruffly, feigning apathy.

"Who were they?" he heard the blonde cavalier ask softly, her velveteen voice hushed as if she was revealing a hallow secret that would end her life if someone caught her in the act. He exhaled sharply, mentally debating whether or not to answer the inquiry. From his unusual silence Amelia instantly gleaned her query harrowed him and she strenuously endeavored to redeem herself for her unintentional prying.

"I-I'm sorry if I asked such a personal question, General Caellach. It's just—"

"They were my mother and sisters."

His blunt, abrupt answer caught Amelia off guard since she wasn't expecting him to concede to her somewhat innocent request. "Excuse me?"

He curtly turned his formidable gaze upon, cinnamon eyes caging in so much detriment and indignant that Amelia felt a wave of sympathy washing over her as she faced the uncompromising stare. "The graves you saw were the resting places of my mother and two sisters." he stated, his baritone toneless and grim.

Startled, Amelia could only remark with a simple: "Oh." Caellach's tawny eyes bore deeply into hers and she struggled to find her voice. Once the astonishment dispersed, she managed to express her condolences. "I'm so sorry, Caellach. When…?"

"When I was fifteen." The Tiger Eye frowned, appearing hesitant in mentioning something to her, his perturbed countenance conveying a mental tirade brewing inside his mind. What seemed to be an eternity to Amelia–who desperately craved to apprehend more of her superior–when the wait was only a few minutes, Caellach then spoke again.

"The four of us were trapped in a sandstorm and our tiny village was in shambles. Starvation and illness completely wiped the townsfolk out, including my father, who provided the most for us. After his death we attempted to leave the abysmal hamlet…yet Jehanna decided otherwise."

"What do you mean?" Amelia questioned serenely, arching a fair eyebrow.

"They perished in the desert. Jehanna snatch them away from me. End of story." Caellach snapped, detesting how easily she was burrowing herself into him. He hoped that was the end of her questionnaires and he could send her after the captives while he rouses the other men to charge towards the half-drunk, half-asleep (_and half-witted_, he added silently) Raustans while they still possessed the element of surprise.

"You ready to go and free the prisoners, lass?" he asked her, pretending the unfavorable conversation they just had didn't occur. Amelia nodded dutifully, appearing strangely carefree in spite of the fact he groused at her a couple of seconds ago.

"Ready as ever!" she responded firmly, endeavoring to behave professionally yet her lucent azuline orbs still contained the amiable, soothing luminesce Caellach haplessly found himself attracted to. Like a moth to a flame he was and the prospect infuriated him to no end.

"Good." He turned to the rest of his soldiers, who either squatted or lied down, impatiently awaiting his orders. "All right, you maggots, the Raustans are fat and lazy from their flippant revelry hence now it's our time to have a celebration of our own." Several Gradans snickered, clearly amused by their general's implication.

"On my signal, we besiege the camp. Do your job properly and we'll have a feast tonight, boys!"

* * *

Needless to say, the Grado internees were just had flabbergasted as their enemies by the precipitate appearance and onslaught of the Tiger Eye's regiment.

"The Imperial Army is actually here?!" exclaimed one prisoner incredulously when Amelia arrived and commenced in freeing her fellow soldiers from their trammels. In reply, she simply smiled and wordlessly nodded her head. She, along with the help the liberated captives, made her way to all the imprisoned Gradans, occasionally glancing to survey the battlefield to be certain the Rausten soldiers were focused on Caellach's platoon and not on the escaping Grado prisoners.

Extremely proud of her efforts so far, Amelia jocundly finished releasing Henrik (who muttered a quick word of thanks and then went off to retrieve his dagger she had left behind) and moved to her next assignment which turned out to the pessimistic, crusty Boelthor. She ignored his dour, sullen gazed on her while she worked rapidly and efficiently on his bonds, taking no heed of the nearly asphyxiating tension hovering on them.

"…you were right."

His admittance caused Amelia to falter and she jerked her head up. "Right about what?" she asked albeit she perfectly conceived what he was referring to. Boelthor sighed yet renewed his statement.

"You were right about General Caellach coming for us. I truly credited that he was incorrigible to the core…however you proved me wrong. You have my respect, kid." He said no more thus leaving Amelia to untie the ropes in absolute yet tolerable silence.

* * *

When all the Grado prisoners had finally been released, Amelia directed the sixteen soldiers towards the Rausten artillery and they armed themselves prior to engaging the enemy. Once the last of the freed hostages had taken what he needed and joined the frenzied onset, Amelia took arms herself and mounted the burnet stallion she acquired after escaping Rausten captivity.

"Let's go, Blake!" she cried, adjusting the lance at her side and kicking the said stallion into action. The horse neighed in response and charged head-first into the sanguinary battle, the haphazard, thunderous poundings of its hooves spontaneously signaling their participation in the desert skirmish.

Immediately a foot soldier lunged at her, twirling the lance about in a berserk temperament and jutted the pike's point squarely towards her chest. Amelia parried the hectic assault and maneuvered Blake around the soldier so she gained some ground and could beset with her lance with more efficacy.

"Fight me, dog of Grado!" spat her opponent, lunging towards her and thrusting his lance outward, nearly hitting her right calf. Amelia blocked the convulsive assault and counterattacked when the Raustan soldier failed to recover and almost lost his footing. The butt of her lance unexpectedly penetrated through his armor and punctured right through his shoulder, sticking out from the other end. A detrimental howl exploded from her adversary's mouth as Amelia drove the lance in further before quickly withdrawing it from the grievous wound. Brilliant vermillion droplets now coated the spearhead of her lance, the sand, the man's shoulder, and her countenance. The injured enemy shot an ugly glower at her and resumed his aggression with proliferating hostility.

"You damned shrew!" he hollered spastically, flailing his lance towards her torso. The spearhead sporadically collided against the unarmed portion of her uniform, snagging the fabric and lacerating her skin. Biting back a brief cry of agony, Amelia knocked the pike aside with her free arm and jerked her lance at the skull of the Raustan, seeking to end the arduous onslaught. Her aim was straight and true, for the lance burrowed itself into forehead of doomed solider. Blood gushed out of the fatal infliction, flowing down the carcass's flummoxed face like a jocund, placid, carmine waterfall.

"Finally," murmured Amelia breathlessly, yanking the lance out of the cadaver's brow, "he was really persistent."

Kicking Blake's sides, she and her steed raced into the thick of the battle, tenaciously surveying the battlefield for any Grado soldier in dire need of her support. Bedazzlement pervaded her senses as she scanned past the contorted, surreal carcass of both Grado and Rausten alike and the nebulous dust of stirred sand, the desert sun beating onerously down on her and the rest of occupants. Humidity shrouded them, its torrid beckoning arms encompassing the warriors like a palpable, asphyxiating pall, ergo evoking desert illnesses and fatigue amidst those who did not fall victim to their foe's assailments yet.

"Come at me, you Rausten milksops! Did you think the Tiger Eye would so lenient towards your deaths? Where's the rectitude and gaudy bravado of the Rausten knights now?"

Caellach's deep, coarse baritone attracted Amelia's attention and she rummage through the stentorian combat to find his face amid the quarreling crowd. At last, she found him in the midst of the skirmish, retrieving his tomahawk from the back of a deceased opponent and then embedding his silver axe into another Rausten with the other hand. When the man tumbled to the desolate ground, dead, Caellach pressed onward, slaughtering and silencing any Rausten foolish enough to charge at him brazenly. Amelia observed with stark fascination and revelation as the hero attacked with the mighty swing of his axe or the concise swipe of his sword. On an occasion, he would even sweep or bang his glossy claret shield at his adversaries if the opportunity called for the action. Rapt in awe, Amelia stood motionlessly as Caellach fend off his enemies with remarkable potency and tenacity, marveling his caliber and astounding level of forte. For a lack of better word, he was simply…incredible.

Instantly realizing she had been drifting off in the middle of a battle, Amelia furiously pushed her reverie regarding her commander aside and rejoined the fray. This time by Caellach's side.

"Amelia?" he questioned when he saw her riding to his aid (not that he needed her assistance but he had to admit the gesture was very thoughtful). "What brings you here?" He pivoted behind him to lop off a Rausten soldier's head.

"What do you think, General Caellach? I'm here for support. Why else would I be here?" Amelia explained placidly, impaling a sluggish cavalier with her lance. Caellach didn't respond but gave a grateful head tilt in her direction prior to resuming his fighting tactics. When he assailed to the left, Amelia guarded his right. When he switched over to right, she protected his left flank. He was confounded by her tangents although he compressed his bemusement by conjuring up the concentrated grimace he usually wore in battle and pretending their partnership was a regular occurrence. Yet she had espied a tiny glint of quizzicality in his smoky, fuscous eyes and she assessed his puzzled state. He never expected anyone to lend a helping hand to him and now that someone had, he wasn't certain how to handle the affable transaction. Amelia ruminated on a practical method to tell him everything was all right and he didn't have to trouble himself over her deed.

Either by Fate, Dame Fortune, or a sheer contingency, her keen eyes detected a Rausten myrmidon sneaking up behind Caellach while he was preoccupied with a knight and monk, battling them simultaneously. The opposing myrmidon raised his honed blade, executing the beginning step of a lethal attack. Fiery furor boiled wildly inside Amelia's blood and she grasped the lance tautly in her hands, firmly refusing to permit the soldier to succeed in his sub-rosa assault. As the myrmidon brought the blade down, Amelia's lance sailed outward, the spearhead burying itself into the sword wielder's heart. The man gurgled and hacked out a passel of blood before the final breath departed his lips and death conquered him. Sensing the commotion, Caellach whirled around only to find his would-be killer dead and Amelia's lance piercing his halcyon heart.

"Eh, thanks, lass," commented the Tiger Eye, shifting his gaze away from the corpse to the blonde cavalier who smiled kindly in return. Suddenly, Caellach's eyes widen and quicker than she could even blink the hero general hurtled his tomahawk directly above her head. Amelia heard a whoosh, the cracking sound of metal colliding into bone, and a definitive thud. Whirling around Amelia beheld the sight of a dead druid–her cloak-and-dagger attacker–sprawled across the ochroleucous tinted sand, Caellach's tomahawk entrenched in his skull.

"General Caellach," she whispered, glancing back at him, "thank you." He shrugged the words of gratification off, walking over the druid and retrieved his special hand axe.

"You saved my hide and I saved yours. We're squared."

"I watch your back and you watch mine. That's what comrade-in-arms do." Snorting, Caellach rolled his eyes as he cursorily wiped the tomahawk free of bloodstains.

"Those rules apply to ordinary men. I'm not an ordinary man, lass." Amelia immediately interjected.

"I realized that, General Caellach, but even you deserve—"

She never had the chance to finish her sentence. An excruciating, burgeoning magnitude of agony she had never experienced before shot through her side, irrevocable pain exploding all over her lower abdomen. Lowering her eyes down to the infliction, Amelia saw an arrow protruding her waist and a haematic splotch imbued her sullied uniform. White spots cavorted around in Amelia's vision and disorientation started pervading the blonde cavalier's senses. She heard Caellach scream her name yet barely comprehended the rising panic laced within his yell. A second potent pang prickled all over her erector spinae and a de profundis escaped her chapped lips. Had she been hit again? Where were all these arrows coming from? Why couldn't she detect the archer's or archers' location? Laden with dysphoria and sudden lassitude, Amelia struggled to stand erect in the saddle and not slump over and fall off Blake.

_What's happening to me? Were the arrows poisoned? Why am I so fatigue…?_

The foreboding white dots returned and speckled her sight with uncanny fervency. Slowly losing consciousness, Amelia lost her grip on the saddle and slid off her horse.

* * *

"AMELIA!" Caellach hollered in utter horror as he witnessed the blonde cavalier tumble out of her saddle, two arrows projecting from her back and lower torso. Accumulating speed he never imagined he possessed, the hero lurched to Amelia's rescue and caught her prior she struck the scalding, sandy ground.

"Lass?" he murmured, gently shifting her around in his arms and flicking a couple of flaxen tresses out of her half-shut eyes. "Amelia? Can you hear me?"

"Yes…" she replied feebly, sputtering a bit. Caellach furrowed his eyebrows and took a more thorough, meticulous inspection on the hideous punctures delivered by the blasted arrows. Translucent aubergine liquid dripped and trickled down from the bleeding wounds, merging together with the crimson fluid to form a sinister shade of fuchsia. Caellach cursed vibrantly out loud, instantly assessing the identification of the arcane, noxious mulberry substance.

_God's wounds, both arrows are coated in poison! There's no telling how lethal the toxin is; already Amelia is undergoing the first stage._

Vehemently wishing he packed an antidote in his satchel, Caellach tenderly set the partly consciousness Amelia down, cautious not to disturb her or the injuries or accelerate the flow of the poison. He was no stranger to envenomed wounds, anyone who lived Jehanna wouldn't be. The desert was a haven to a plethora of poisonous creatures and majority of Jehannans contained a fundamental knowledge of how to withdraw venom from a person's body without a Restore staff or antidote. The method was oral and if Amelia was to survive this ordeal he better work fast.

Stripping her out of her tarnished armor and tossing the aegis aside, Caellach rolled her besmirched, blood-soaked shirt up mid-way, stopping just right under her breasts. Examining the two punctures Caellach raked a hand through his auburn hair, fully aware the arrows would have to be removed first before he can commence the venom extraction. Yet for he knew, the arrows could be the sole entities forestalling Amelia from bleeding to death.

"Either way, there's a risk. Poison or blood loss, pick one," the Tiger Eye muttered gruffly to himself, stuffing a wad of cloth he had torn from his own shirt into Amelia's mouth to prevent her biting off her tongue. Grasping the arrow's shaft with one hand and the fletching in the other, Caellach grimaced and methodically pulled the arrow out of Amelia's backside. Through the makeshift gag Amelia cried out in detriment and half-heartedly clawed at his arms, still combating the dreary, mercurial haze of senselessness. Discarding the first arrow, Caellach moved to the next one and repeated the same steps. This time he only received a weak, muffled whimper from Amelia.

"All right, then. Time to extract the poison." Swallowing to ease the heavy lump in his throat, he leaned down and placed his mouth over the first wound, and began to suck the toxin out of Amelia's muscles. Haphazardly he would spit out the poison he had garnered and then resumed the extraction. Time was slow to him, time was nonexistent. His focus, all his introspections were centered on saving a young, affable blonde female from certain death. Finally, after deducing the puncture had been wholly purged, the hero general proceeded to the second and last injury. Eclipsing his lips over the fleshy rupture Caellach went through the whole cycle once more, silently praying his strenuous efforts were not all in vain. For some obscure, inexplicable reason he strongly wanted Amelia to live and not perish in the desert, just as his mother, Jeanine, and Windy did. He would triumph over Jehanna, not the other way around. The desert shall not be the victor today, not if he had anything to say on the morbid subject.

Several minutes whizzed by and Caellach continued to regurgitate and pry the venom out of Amelia, oblivious to the sporadic, fervent frenzy transpiring all around him. When he ejected the last of the toxin from his mouth and Amelia's second puncture was poison-free, Caellach gently nudged the side of her face with his hand, hoping she was partly conscious and didn't surrender to the entreating embrace of sleep.

"Amelia? Lass?" he said quietly to her and the said cavalier stirred slightly, her face crinkling up in semi-confusion. "Are you awake?" To his relief, Amelia's eyelids fluttered opened and she slowly tilted her head in his direction, a ghost of a worn but auspicious smile on her lips.

"I am now," Amelia rasped out, "what happened? How—?"

"I managed to extract most of the venom out of your body but we probably should take you to a healer as a precaution. I might have missed some of the toxin. But first, we must tend to those two injuries of yours." In consensus, Amelia nodded weakly.

"I have a vulnerary in my knapsack," the wounded female mused gravelly, gesticulating to the fallen canvas bag near the burnet horse. Caellach rummaged through her satchel's contents and eventually found the potion. Sliding one hand underneath Amelia's head and clutching the vulnerary in the other, he inclined the blonde cavalier's head forward and steadily poured the salving liquid down her throat. He heard the sizzling sonance of torn flesh being regenerated and patched together. The convalescing process comforted him, assuring him Amelia was out of the danger zone and would recover swiftly and successfully.

Once the vulnerary had taken its course and completed the mending, Caellach delicately hoisted Amelia onto her feet and helped her mount the steed before he swung over the stallion, placing himself behind her. "I'm taking the reins," he stated flatly despite Amelia's protests she could handle the task, "you're still exhausted from the ordeal and the last quandary we both need is you passing out while riding in control." With an authoritative yell to the horse and a kick in the sides, the steed launched itself into an agile canter and quickly escalated into a mighty, stentorian gallop.

"You're so much different than everyone says you are," Amelia told him offhandedly and the hero arched one bronze brow nonchalantly.

"Really now? What ever gave you that notion?" He could sense her smiling jocosely at his response, alacrity brimming in her azuline orbs.

"You saved my life yet people claim you care naught for anyone except yourself. They claim you'll stomp over anybody to accomplish your ambitions but you didn't leave me die just so you could achieve your victory."

Caellach felt his stomach clench convulsively at her statements and his grip on the chafed reins tightened. "What's your point?" he groused, detesting her frank perception.

Amelia rotated her head around to face him and his stoic gaze. Displaying a considerably amazing amount of tour de force in her whole mien, she thusly replied, "My point is you aren't as horrible as they all portray you as. You have a kind heart, Caellach, despite what you or others esteem."

Unable to help himself, he sniggered amusingly at her confounding proclamation. "Lass, one act of humility don't automatically make me a decent man. I'm no saint."

"Neither I am," Amelia interjected, undaunted by the Tiger Eye's rebuttal, "but that doesn't mean I'm a terrible person. Granted, I have committed some rather awful acts and made some mistakes in the past yet we're humans, right? We're not perfect." She leveled her scintillating, celeste scrutiny against his hazel eyes, sheer obstinacy written all over her face.

"I believe, deep inside, you're a good person, Caellach, whether you want to acknowledge the fact or not. You rescued me from my demise and that's enough proof to me you are capable of kindness."

"What if you are wrong? About me and everything else?" The charming, enchanting smile widened and she sank deep into his chest, closing her eyes in jubilance.

"For the first time in my life, I am positive that I'm right. I _know_ I am." Instead rolling his eyes at her importunate belief in his goodwill, Caellach instead found himself cocking a droll half-grin on her behalf.

"Well then, let us allow Father Time to confirm your faith about my mortal being and if I'm even worth redeeming."

Mellifluous laughter bubbled out of Amelia and he instantly realized how much he relished that delightful, empyrean noise. Just like her lovely, dazzling smile.

"Yes, let's, General Caellach. Let's wait and see."

* * *

"_You tell me we can start the rain,_

_You tell me that we can all change_

_You tell me we can find something to wash the tears away,_

_You tell me we can start the rain_

_You tell me that we can all change_

_You tell me we can find something to wash the tears away……_

_And I know of the pain that you feel the same as me,_

_And I dream of the rain that falls upon the leaves_

_And the cracks in our lives like the cracks on the ground,  
_

_They are sealed and are now far away."_

_**-Rainmaker,**_ Iron Maiden

* * *

Color Glossary:

Lurid- red-yellow

Jacinthe- orange

Flammeous- flame-colored

Cinereous- ash-grey

Subfusc- a somber, dark or dusky color

Azuline- blue

Luteolous- yellow

Brunneous- dark brown

Celeste- blue

Pavonated- peacock blue

Burnet- dark brown

Fuscous- tawny

Ochroleucous- yellowish white

Haematic- blood colored

Aubergine- dark purple

(Let me know if I missed any other obscure colors.)

Tada! Support A is, at last, finished which means…all there is left is the epilogue. Hence this mini story will soon be over! Rather sad, I know, but you knew it was going to betide eventually. Now you can review, critic, all that jazz, I thoroughly enjoy hearing your comments and responses to the chapters. Flamers, you cannot join in the extravaganza or one irate Demon King shall deliver a dish of his noxious casserole (which contains unidentifiable ingredients) onto your doorstep. Plus, I credit that the "casserole" is alive…so it's your funeral. Oh, well.

That's a wrap. Adieu!

_:SpeedDemon315:_


	4. Epilogue: The Tiger Eye and His Tigress

**The Beauty of Us Two**

**Summary:** (Support conversations between Caellach and Amelia) She was an innocent yet resolute recruit while he was hardened, embittered warrior. She espied his scarred soul and wanted to help him. He wasn't too certain if he should let her. Amazing on what a few, simple talks can create. (CaellachxAmelia)

**Epilogue:** _The Tiger Eye and His Tigress_

Text:

"Speech"

_Thoughts _

**Flashback**

Songs/Music:

"Easy Livin'" by Uriah Heep

"Meadows of Heaven" by Nightwish

**Disclaimer: Hahaha, very funny. No, seriously, I am not regaled. Don't let me tarry you any further, go down and read the next chapter. You don't need to read this fatuity; you all know that the Sacred Stones isn't mine, correct? **

* * *

_"The is a thing I have_

_Never known before_

_It's called easy livin'_

_This is a place I've _

_Never seen before_

_And I've been forgiven_

_Easy livin' and I've been forgiven_

_Since you've taken_

_Your place in my heart."_

**-Easy Livin',** _**Uriah Heep**_

* * *

"Erin, hurry up! Your father's waiting for us!"

The said thirteen-year-old girl with sparkling azuline eyes and a messy blonde ponytail sighed, scrambling to collect her effects. "I'm coming, Mother!" she called exasperatedly over her shoulder. Espying her trusty sword the young female seized the blade, dashed out of her room and the house with weapons sheathed and a canvas bag strapped to her back. She found her mother holding one of Taigā's, her five-year-old brother, hands while her father was busy tousling his messy auburn hair.

"I'm here!" Erin announced breathlessly, trotting up to her mother and father. Taigā ran up to her and offered her a hug which she gladly accepted.

"So," her father began when Taigā stopped squeezing her lungs out, "you ready to journey to the Grado Keep and show those silly recruits a lesson or two about _real_ swordsmanship?" Erin bobbed her head exuberantly, psyched to display her prowess with a blade in front of the instructors and her fellow comrade-in-arms. She had always considered herself lucky to be the daughter of two of Grado's most prominent generals, Amelia the Ammolite and Caellach the Tiger Eye. Caellach, her father, had been a general since the nascence of the War of the Stones however her mother wasn't promoted to the general rank until the tumultuous, convoluted war came to a close. Her mother–along with two others–was accepted into the general status thus forging the new and improved Imperial Six. Two of the originals, Glen the Sunstone and Riev the Blood Beryl, had been killed during the war and Duessel the Obsidian retired soon after, stating he "longed to be back into the arms of his family again and decided to leave the fighting to the younger generation".

"Shall we go?" her mother, Amelia the Ammolite, remarked jocundly. Without a moment to lose, Erin efficiently mounted her dappled grey horse she dubbed 'Granite' and Amelia and Caellach swung up over their own steeds. Taigā rode with his father this time, excitement awash on his cherubic face.

"We're going to see the very big castle, aren't we, Dada?" the toddler asked fervently, hazel eyes glittering with innocent joy. Smirking, Caellach nodded down at his son, a similar joy in the identical pair of eyes.

"Yes, we are, Taigā," the Tiger Eye replied, "Grado Keep is a large castle indeed." Taigā squealed with delight at his father's words and promptly demanded they go there at once with the same blunt authority his father evinced to his men.

"Like father, like son," Erin heard her mother murmur drolly to her father. Caellach returned the remark with one of his lopsided, roguish grins that many people commented both she and her brother seemed to inherit.

"You know you love it," the hero answered cockily and Amelia tittered. With an assuring shout to their chargers both Grado generals were off, with Erin riding right beside them.

* * *

They reached the Grado Keep just before noontime and the stable boys and pages appeared out of nowhere to lead the three horses to their respectable stalls. The family of four traversed down to the training grounds, where a small bevy of people awaited them. Instantly spying one of the figures with excessive blithe, Erin sprinted away from her family and towards the young yet growing boy around her age.

"Kerrigan!" she cried out merrily, flinging her arms around the lad's neck. The said mage begrudgingly copied the gesture, a hint of a regaled smile grazing his lips.

"And hello to you too, Erin," Kerrigan replied suavely, staring intently at her with his profound azure eyes, so dark compared to her true blue ones. Flushing slightly from his intense gaze, Erin withdrew the embrace and beamed up at him.

"I heard they allowed you to be your mother's apprentice. Congratulations!" she exclaimed, assaying to calm the anxious beating of her own heart. Kerrigan smirked but accepted her amiable words with a grateful head tilt.

"My mother is the best mage knight in the land. If I ever desire to be a master spell caster I would perform my best with her. Besides, I'd be wasting my time sparring with all the weaklings around here. It's so disappointing, really." Although Kerrigan was a boy of thirteen years blessed with his mother's magical talents, he had also been gifted with his father's dark, alluring duende and smug confidence. Feared and resented by lads his age, he erstwhile had attracted a crowd of young maidens due to his arcane, resolute, and rather beastly personality. Even one of the Emperor's own daughters was besotted by him, much Grado's monarch and Kerrigan's dismay. Kerrigan despised the feminine attention he was receiving and kept his older sister, Gunhild, and her as his only female companions. Erin suspected Kerrigan had perceived her covert affections for him but he never once brought it up. He seemed to tolerate her little outbursts of endearment, even enjoy them once and awhile. Compared to the pathetic attempts and failures by her rivals she had them trumped by far.

"I heard the same possibility might be granted to you, Erin," the superlative mage commented smoothly, brushing a sable strand out of his eyes, "they'd be utter fools if they refuse your father's proposal."

Erin shrugged. "I'm sure they know what they're doing," she affirmed, causing a humorous snort from Kerrigan yet he didn't say any more on the matter.

Amelia, Caellach, and Taigā soon entered the picture and Kerrigan's mother, Selena Fluorspar, exchanged a congenial embrace with the blonde great knight while Caellach and Valter, Kerrigan's father, executed a somewhat awkward handshake. During the handshake, Caellach flashed a suspicious glance over to Kerrigan and Erin, a protective glint in his cinnamon eyes. He had gleaned one of these days Kerrigan was probably the one who would be gallivanting off with his daughter when she grew of age. Albeit he would bemoan and rail how the event would make him related to Valter, he clandestinely approved of the lad. Erin didn't realize that but his wife did. Nothing could escape his keen-eyed Amelia who had changed and grown up so much through out the War of the Stones. As Caellach looked back at everything that had transpired to him and Amelia, the brooding hero wondered where he would be today if it wasn't for his Amelia.

_I'd probably be rotting in the Jehanna desert with those putrid, witless vultures picking on my bleached bones._

Brushing aside his retrospections, Caellach shifted his focus to Amelia who was merrily chatting with Selena, wife of Valter, just like they did in the war, traveling with the Renais twins. At the thought of the Renais brats Caellach inwardly grimaced, still finding the fact he fought along their side a tad bit demeaning and unsavory to him. It wasn't like he was suddenly seized with the ardent desire to partake in a righteous cause; the whole recruiting business was mostly based off securing his and Amelia's lives in case the war took a drastic turn for the worse. Selena's and Valter's reason was wholly identical to theirs. In fact, none of them probably wouldn't have been where they were today if Fate hadn't come along and caused them bump into each other right in the heart of the Jehanna desert.

**"What the bloody hell are you two doing here?" Caellach demanded brusquely at the two Grado generals. To say he was nonplussed would have been an understatement–he was utterly stupefied and shell-shocked. Not just because Selena and Valter were traipsing around the desert without their regiments but because of astonishing sight of the peerless mage knight perched on Valter's two-legged wyvern, in front of the licentious wyvern knight with his arm wrapped around her waist rather possessively. Last he checked, those two never spared a single glance or a word to each other. **

_**What in the Demon King's name did I miss?**_

**"Judging by your exclamation and the tone of your voice, you were not dispatched to kill us," mused Selena stoically, stimulating more questionnaires inside Caellach's head. **

**"Caellach?" Amelia whispered, inching closer to him so the two Grado generals couldn't hear her, "Do you know them?" The said hero nodded stiffly. **

**"The female is General Selena Fluorspar and the wretch behind her is General Valter the Moonstone." he murmured back to her, eyeing his peers askance. **

**"I heard that, Caellach," Valter groused, leveling his spear at deadly angle, in range to strike him in the heart. Caellach already brandished his silver axe and was poised for a frontal assault. However, Selena and Amelia halted the two squabbling men, pushing aside their weapons. **

**"That's enough, Valter," Selena snapped, narrowing her sapphire eyes warningly at the Moonstone, "they haven't affronted us." Valter rolled his eyes, muttering a something that suspicious sounded like "not yet, wench" but conceded to Selena's demand. Amelia, on the other hand, was scolding Caellach like a mother who caught her child's hand the cookie jar. **

**"Caellach, you shouldn't attack your comrades so," the young cavalier reprimanded a baffled Caellach, blinking incredulously while she shook her pointer finger at him, "they are our allies hence you shouldn't treat them so poorly." When she finished, Amelia jutted her face up defiantly, celeste orbs daring him to protest. Caellach didn't know whether to laugh or gap disbelievingly at the newfound aplomb the female soldier was wielding. Settling for a wolfish half-grin, he chucked her under the chin just like he did when he first encountered her. Amelia stared at him skeptically yet rosy hue faintly appeared on her countenance, announcing his victory. **

**"Whatever you say, lass," he replied friskily, winking impishly at her, "maybe next time you'll spank me." **

**Amelia rapidly turned at least twenty different shades of crimson. **

**"General Selena, General Valter," she began nervously, blatantly avoiding Caellach's amused gaze as she spoke, "it is an honor to meet you both." Valter replied with a smirk and an acknowledgeable head tilt while Selena smiled genially at the sincere cavalier, thanking Amelia. **

**"So what brings you two here?" Caellach inquired, moving up behind Amelia and clamping a protective hand on her shoulder. He could have sworn a brief beam skittered across her lips before disappearing into thin air. **

**Selena and Valter exchanged inquisitive glances, their alert eyes containing the same light of dubiety. They hesitated to respond, silently communicating to each other through their eyes and other obscure means that Caellach fathomed he would evoke a headache if he tried to decipher their furtive conversation. Before he could open his mouth and repeat himself, Selena's placid voice sliced through the air like a sword cutting glass. **

**"We're on the run, Caellach." **

**Taken aback, the said general quickly questioned, "From whom? The whelp Ephraim?" To amplify his puzzlement the two Grado general shook their heads, their mouths tight grim lines. "Okay, then who?" **

**Prior to either one of them could answer, Amelia urgently exclaimed, "Danger approaches!" To prove her ominous claim, she pointed squarely at the portending legion marching in the torrid horizon, sand mites swirling all over the soldiers' diligent, rigid forms. **

**"Ah, hell," cursed Valter, swinging his lance around in the direction of the oncoming army, "those little fish are just asking to be speared!"**

**"Or fried," inputted Selena thusly, the corners of her lips curving into a droll half-smile. Electricity crackled and hummed in the palm of her right hand, posed for obliteration. Amelia quickly copied the position of Valter's spear, hoping she could assist the three other generals as much as possible. Hating to admit the wretched fact yet she felt like the weak link of the chain and wanted to change that. Every battle she fought in would gradually increase her skills and experience, slowly but surely molding her into a fine, prominent warrior, just like Caellach, General Valter, and General Selena. She was lucky to have them as her traveling companions. **

**Caellach gripped his axe at hand, squinting to glimpse who their conspicuous enemy was. When the crest and lucent ensign emerged from the rolling waves of sediment and dust, he nearly dropped his axe in sheer disbelief. The proud, conspicuous emblem woven on the latently flapping standard was unmistakable and Caellach felt a series of more questions pouring out him. **

**"What the bloody hell is going on?! Why is _Grado_ coming after us?" **

**A grim smile slithered across Selena's lips. "Actually, they're coming after _us_. We have committed an unpardonable act." **

**"Like what?" the Tiger Eye demanded, hectically mulling for any crimes both her and Valter execute together that would enrage Grado so. **

**Valter's tightly closed mouth was replaced with a wicked smirk, his charcoal eyes dancing with humor and wry. "Treason." the Moonstone replied thusly, the smirk never leaving his pallid face. **

**Caellach could have been knocked over a feather after they wyvern knight's admission. "Wait, wait, _what_?! Why would you two do that, you have nothing to gain if you betray Vigarde." **

**Selena's eyes darkened. "We won't achieve anything if we stay with him and Prince Lyon. Not with the condition they're in." By the way she uttered 'condition' Caellach suspected she knew more than she was letting on. Valter must be the reason for that.**

**"Valter, did you by any chance tell her…?" he trailed off, fathoming that the bloodthirsty general would catch his drift. **

**"Yes, I did indeed," Valter replied swiftly, sable eyes never vacillating from their target–the marching Grado troops. Eyes dilating, Caellach gawped incredulously at the notorious Moonstone, struggling to grasp his insane reasoning for disclosing such a confound secret only he, Valter, and Riev knew. They all comprehended the perils of revealing such an earth-shattering enigma yet Valter informed the ghastly truth behind the monarchs of Grado to one of the emperor's most assiduous soldiers, without batting eyelash apparently. Caellach would have never esteemed Selena would sever ties with Vigarde but the news of Lyon's demonic possession and Emperor Vigarde's puppet-akin status probably was the impetus that caused her to turn traitor. **

**_If that's so, then why the hell is Valter switching sides along with Selena?_ **

**"We'll explain later," Selena inputted quickly, "right now we have to eliminate the enemy before us." Valter's wyvern flapped its wings, prepared to fight or take flight. Amelia inched her way towards them, hoping to serve as their back-up. Swift as lightning, Caellach snatched Amelia's arm, jerking her backwards.**

**"What do you think you're doing, lass? This isn't our fight."**

**For the first time since they were trekking partners, Amelia actually glared frostily at him. "But they're _our_ comrades and they need our support! You wouldn't really abandon them, would you, Caellach?" Her scalding glower immobilized him where he stood and the Tiger Eye had to carefully dissect her words and the emotions riveting in the blonde cavalier's voice. **

**Amelia was willing to fight alongside two people she just met and didn't care if she was branded a traitor for her efforts. She would fight till the end for her comrade-and-arms and it wouldn't matter even if she received the short end of the stick or couldn't possibly match the enemy's caliber. What she lacked in skill she was resolute to make up with heart and willpower. **

**Yet Amelia's augment strength wasn't the main reason that stirred an impression within his very soul, no, it was the wistful expression gleaming in her azuline orbs that implored him to stay and battle with her and his peers. Her face may have been defiant and fierce but her eyes pleaded for his aid. **

**That's precisely when Caellach, the fearsome and venturous Tiger Eye of Grado, instantly realized he can never be fully swayed away from Amelia's side. He could never refuse her, never forsake her, and never trade her life to save his own skin. What astounded him even more was the fact he was wholly acquiescent in sacrificing his dream of becoming king just to be with Amelia a little longer, providing they both survive the brutal workings of war. Caellach knew he was behaving irrationally–stupid even–yet it was worth the price. Amelia was worth the price. **

**"No, lass," Caellach finally said, "I'm won't abandon you _or_ them." **

**Amelia's face-splitting beam was enough to make his life complete.**

Fortuitously enough, they actually managed to defeat the behemoth entourage of Grado legionnaires and escape the clutches of the reinforcements that arrived later. Yet their good fortune started dwindling considerably when they became low on rations, the Grado Imperial Army was hot on their tail, and to top the list of misery off, they were constantly being bombarded by dust devils. Caellach never thought it possible but he despised the Jehanna desert even more. At least he wasn't suffering alone, the situation seemed less bleak and miserable traveling with Amelia, Selena, and even Valter. He nearly laughed at the prospect that he enjoyed their company notwithstanding he eventually realized that was truth and he felt content and at ease around those three than he ever had in his entire life.

Dame Fortune was quite a fickle, intricate mistress.

That statement was irrefutably proven when they, former Grado soldiers, collided with the Renais twins and their ragtag troupe.

**"Lovely, just lovely," Caellach muttered under his breath as he brandished his axe and shield, "we manage to skive away from the wretched Gradans only to run into those blasted, annoying Renais brats." He cursed uncouthly, loathing for the first time in his life how the high the odds were stacked up against him. Amelia unsheathed her sword and held the steel blade in front of her, steadying herself for the assault that was yet to come. Erstwhile Selena was conjuring up her anima magic and Valter was pinpointing his first victim to spear. **

**"Do you think they'll spare us?" Amelia asked cautiously, averting her pavonated eyes from the impending posse to him. Caellach shrugged. **

**"It's highly doubtful. You might be the luckiest out of us, since you're not a Grado general. Selena might get a clean break too, not many bear a grudge against her. It's Valter and I who will get the axe, so to speak. Pretty much everyone hates us." Caellach finished with a dry laugh. "Isn't that right, Valter?" **

**The said wyvern knight's mouth twitched with regalement. "Oh yes," he replied humorously, "men and women alike curse our names." **

**"Oh, quit exaggerating," retorted Selena, smacking Valter on the arm. Valter's half-grin rapidly transformed into a full-blown smirk. **

**Before the Moonstone could riposte with a cocky witticism, the appearance of the variant fighters ceased the four Gradans' chatter and sharpened their focus. They tensed, poised and alert for the first wave of soldiers. Instead, a youth with wavy aquamarine locks carrying an elegant lance entered their realm of vision, flanked by an equally regal male equipped with a bow. The diverse platoon at their command parted away from them like rolling placid waves before the magnetic power of the pendulous, phosphorescent moon. **

**"Generals of Grado," began the lordling with teal hair (Caellach suspected he was Prince Ephraim), "I am Prince Ephraim and this Prince Innes. We have heard about your plight—"**

**"Actually," interrupted Prince Innes, cutting a scathing glare at the Renais prince, "what we mean is, we have heard rumors fluttering about your recent departure from Grado." The haughty, genteel prince coldly observed their battle stances, his contempt for them painfully evident. Unfortunately for the Frelian prince, Caellach despised stiff-neck, pompous nobles like him and relished in humiliating them. The Tiger Eye cracked a jaunty grin, a patent sign for the trouble yet to arrive. **

**"Aye, you heard right, princeling," Caellach called out, "we left Grado for a holiday. That's right; we decided to spend our well-earned vacation right here, in the middle of the Jehanna desert. Conditions aren't the best but you get a really nice tan." **

**Snickers arose from Valter and both females had to cover their mouths to compress the laughter portending to escape. The prince called Innes flushed a vibrant color of coccineous and he fingered with the string of his bow irately. **

**"Caellach, I don't think that was a very smart move," Amelia whispered warily to him while gauging Innes's slight movements. The said hero shrugged, unconcerned of the ire of the royal whelp. **

**"He had it coming. Besides, you found my comment hilarious," he pointed out and the blonde cavalier sighed in compliance. **

**"Yes, but he doesn't appear too thrilled by your answer," she remarked. Caellach curiously noted she didn't seem as worried as her tentative voice conveyed. **

**"I'm being serious here, you Grado dogs!" hissed Prince Innes, his resentful tenor slashing through the humidity as if the arid atmosphere was constructed out of lace. Amelia and Selena stiffened at his insult while Valter rolled his eyes in boredom. Caellach rested his axe at his side to scratch an itch on the bicep of his weapon arm, hoping his nonchalant demeanor ruffled the Frelian brat's feathers a bit more. **

**"Really now?" the Tiger drawled out, idly flicking a speck of dirt from his silver axe, "Could have fooled me." Prince Innes glowered at him and opened his mouth to deliver a scathing retort–a long, tedious list of aspirations, no doubt–yet Valter promptly cut him off. **

**"Seeing you came to converse with us instead of spewing pathetic, half-wit barbs, I highly suggest you cut to the chase and tell us why you're here." Valter demanded stolidly, his baritone smooth and authoritative. **

**Prince Ephraim was the one who answered the Moonstone's request. "Just a short while ago, we have discovered Grado has proclaimed you all as traitors and consistently sends men to eliminate you. We share a common enemy now and I speak for everyone—" He shot a warning glare at Prince Innes who mumbled something indiscreet, "—when I ask the four of you to join us." **

**Silence followed Prince Ephraim's proposal. The four Grado warriors exchanged wary glances at each other, the same question darting across their faces: Was this for _real_? **

**"Is this some sort of joke?" Caellach replied incredulously, inwardly scoffing the fact Ephraim or his little ragtag army really wanted them as additional assets to their squadron. The Renais prince shook his head slowly, his true blue eyes devoid of any trickery or malignancy. **

**"So…what do we do?" Selena mused, voicing their question out loud but quiet enough so only she, Valter, Amelia, and he could hear her words. "He has a point, we do share a common foe now Emperor Vigarde and Prince Lyon have mandated for our deaths." **

**Valter scowled. "I don't want to work with that whelp Ephraim or his little band of so-called warriors," he groused, shooting a suspicious glare over at the aforementioned diverse regiment. **

**Nodding in agreement, Caellach backed Valter up. "For once, I concur with Valter. They're fighting some foolish, ridiculous cause that will probably end in tears. I'm not going to sacrifice my life for something I don't want be a part of." **

**"But if we refuse their offer, we could possibly die anyway, Caellach," Amelia demurred. Caellach opened his mouth to contradict her but begrudgingly realize her statement spoke the truth. The Grado Imperial Army was out for their blood, hounding them down akin to a voracious wolf pack hunting fleeing, outnumbered dear. Sheer luck and the tenacious will to survive were the two impetuses that had been saving them so far and who knows when their luck would start to run dry. **

**Selena nodded approvingly at Amelia. "She's right. It's only a matter of time before Grado dispatches enough troops to slay us all. Siding with Prince Ephraim might be the only option we have left." **

**Caellach and Valter glanced imperviously at each other, silently communicating with the subtle yet raw expressions in their eyes. Like Valter, Caellach abhorred the idea of offering his services to the Renais twins and their makeshift assemblage of silly idealists. However, if they refused, what did that mean for them, for Amelia in particular? He never would admit it out loud but he loathed seeing any misfortune or harm befall Amelia, especially by his own doing. Judging via Valter's behavior towards Selena and the knowing impression in his sable eyes when the Moonstone recognized Caellach's subtle yet tender affections towards Amelia, the Tiger Eye fathomed the bellicose wyvern knight felt the same way about Selena he did for Amelia. The concept was baffling, at first, but then Caellach understood. If he could harbor some degrees of affinity for a female who possessed so much faith in him then Valter caring for someone other than himself shouldn't prove to be astounding at all. **

**The message clear, Caellach nodded solemnly to Valter who returned the action with a head tilt. "Here's what we're going do," the hero general began, "we're going to accept their offer." **

**"But," interjected Valter before Amelia and Selena could look triumphant, "we shall ask them to grant us clemency if they win the war and defeat the Demon King." While Amelia seemed slightly nonplussed by this statement, Selena completely conceived the reasoning behind Valter's words. **

**Evidently approving this course of action, she replied, "Since Grado has committed many heinous and unforgivable deeds lately and Gradans have been cursed and loathed by other countries and their denizens, a reprieve is exactly what we need if we survive this war and its aftermath. There will always be those who want to take their rage and indignation on any Gradans they set their sights on." **

**Understanding now, Amelia turned to Caellach. "Do you think they'll grant our demands?" she asked him. The Tiger Eye cocked a reassuring, frisky grin, irrefutably to put her mind at ease. **

**"If they need our caliber then they certainly will," he told her, inwardly wondering if there was any truth in his statement. By the gods, he hoped there was. **

Luckily, Prince Ephraim accepted their terms and they grudgingly joined the motley platoon. Of course, most of the members kept their distance from them, which was fine by him. Live and let live, he believed. Despite the lack of people interested in her company, Amelia became fast friends with Selena. Whether they were on the road, the band stopped for a break, during shifts or free time, Caellach would constantly find those two chatting away like they had been long-lost companions. Consequently, this left Caellach and Valter to have some rather interesting quality time together when Amelia and Selena were not around. At first, the conversations had been brief, indifferent, and curt but overtime they noticed they shared some similar interests (for instance, battling and wenching) and sort of became comrades–for the lack of a better word.

After countless of skirmishes and vexing pursuits, they finally made it to the Darkling Woods where Caellach, Valter, and Selena unfortunately encountered a familiar face: Riev.

**"Now, what do I have here? Caellach, Valter, Selena, what do you think you're doing?" the putrid bishop quipped maliciously, entertained by the appearance of his peers. "I would never esteem you three would follow Duessel's example and betray Grado." **

**"Don't play dumb with us, Riev, you were well aware of our defection," Valter retorted darkly. The Blood Beryl chuckled and uttered something to the wyvern knight but Caellach was to busy planning his assault on Riev and keeping a watchful eye on Amelia to hear what the corrupt pontiff was saying. **

**"And Caellach…" **

**Riev's raspy yet smarmy voice jerked the said hero's head around and he cocked an aeneous eyebrow at Riev whose sunken sallow visage was awash with morbid glee. "What about your dream of being king? Don't tell me you have been stricken with the same malady Valter has and are acquiescent in throwing your goal away just for a female, a mere girl from what I'm seeing." As if on cue, a horseback Amelia flanked Caellach, dangerously narrowing her azuline eyes at Riev while she lowered her steel lance and pointed the pike fatally at the Blood Beryl. Riev cackled at Amelia's act, scrutinizing the four Grado soldiers' formidable, menacing battle stances. "I see your lady fair has bite, Caellach. Somehow I am not at all shocked." **

**Abruptly, Riev's bantering demeanor melted away, revealing a pernicious, malevolent psyche. "Yet I am deeply curious in how you two will fare once you witness your loves vanish completely from this world." Laughing manically, Riev summoned his light magic and prepared to blast his sorcery onto his two selected victims: Selena and Amelia. **

**Everything betided so quickly Caellach only had moment to assess what exactly transpired. One minute he was launching his tomahawk to protect Amelia from Riev's Divine, followed by a blinding, brilliant illumination and a shriek of raw detriment, and the next, he was facing Riev's contorted corpse. With his tomahawk entrenched in his skull, Valter's spear piercing his heart, Amelia's javelin embedded in his stomach, and severe, obviously mortal conflagration marks riddling his shriveled physique, it was difficult to deduce which of them dealt the coup de grace. Haematic rivulets stained Riev's russet pallium, permeating through his besmirched robes and leaving sticky cerise pools all around. His beady orbs bulged outward, listless and glazed, like polished marble.**

**The four companions breathed out a sigh of relief and subsequently glanced at each other to check for any injuries. **

**"You fine, lass?" Caellach demanded softly at Amelia, searching for any signs that Riev's magic might have smite her. She shook her head, banishing his fears. **

**"What about you, Caellach? He didn't hit you any where, did he?" **

**The said general cocked a roguish grin at Amelia, assuring her nothing was wrong. "Nah, that old coot could never land a touch on me. I'm far too quick for him." Smiling wearily yet contently at his words, Amelia nodded and turned to rejoin the battle but Caellach halted her by encircling his arms around her slim waist and pulling her back to him. "Caellach, what—" **

**"Hush, Amelia." She must have sensed the intensity in his voice thus she broke off her exclamation and only stared at him curiously. "Before you go gallivanting off and slaying some more monsters, I want you to know something." **

**Amelia's round pavonated eyes dilated considerably at his words, her mouth parted slightly as if a question was on the tip of her tongue and then promptly vanished. Caellach leaned in nigh, brushing his mouth against her ear and Amelia shivered delightfully.**

**"When the damned Demon King is dead and this blasted war is over, I'm going to spend the rest my life with you, lass. I'm not going to let you go."**

**His definitive, astounding statement hovered over them and Amelia carefully digested his proposal, his subtle declaration of devotion. Gazing up at the man she had been with for so long she could barely recall, Amelia fathomed he was her future, the new life that awaited her. Bursting with boundless joy, Amelia buried her face into Caellach neck, thanking the gods over and over again for granting her such an invaluable gift. **

**"Caellach, did you just propose to me?" she bantered, unable to stop the impish grin curling its way onto her lips. Caellach's chest rumbled with laughter, followed by an "aye, I did, Amelia." Keeping the frisky grin on her face, Amelia peered up at the man in her life, contemplating the arcane yet exciting journey they would take together. **

**"Good, Caellach, because I'm not going to let you go either." **

"Dada!" screeched Taigā, bringing the Tiger Eye back into the present. "Pick me up!"

Chuckling, Caellach complied and hoisted his son up into his arms. Amelia smiled jocosely at him and he returned the gesture, relishing how her celeste orbs shimmered with love and joy. He might not be a king yet he was a husband and a father and that was so much better.

Amelia approached him, placing an endearing hand on the shoulder that wasn't occupied by their son's head and pecked the hero general lightly on the cheek. "Selena and Valter are expecting another child, Caellach. Can you believe it?" his wife said to him, her excitement for the arrival of the two said Grado generals' infant written all over her lovely visage.

"Can't say I'm surprised," he remarked, glancing at his peers, noting Selena and Valter were talking amongst themselves while Kerrigan and Erin seemed to observing some sort of spectacle by the training grounds. _Gunhild is probably quarreling with Cormag's firstborn, whatever his name is, again._ Focusing his attention back onto his wife, Caellach let the squirming Taigā down and draped one arm behind her back.

"Thinking about having another one?" he asked roguishly and Amelia's eyes sparkled with mischief.

"Perhaps," she replied cryptically, rosy lips curving into a wicked grin that titillated his blood to astronomical rates, "but you have to be extremely diligent in your duties, Caellach." Her mockingly stern voice evoked a droll laugh from the said general.

"Oh, don't you worry, Amelia, I'll be extra _diligent_ in my duties to you."

**THE END

* * *

**

_"I close my eyes_

_The lantern dies_

_The scent of awakening_

_Wildhoney and dew._

_Childhood games_

_Woods and lakes_

_Streams of silver_

_Toys of olden days._

_Meadows of heaven._

_The flowers of wonder_

_And the hidden treasures_

_In the meadow of life_

_My acre of heaven_

_A 5-year-old winterheart_

_In a place called home_

_Sailing the waves of past."_

**-Meadows of Heaven, _Nightwish_**

* * *

Color Glossary:

Azuline- blue

Celeste- blue

Pavonated- peacock blue

Coccineous- bright red

Aeneous- bronze

Haematic- blood-colored

(Let me know if I missed any other obscure colors.)

Well, there you go; the epilogue of Caellach and Amelia. I esteem I probably stunned a couple readers out there with my grand concept of them getting married and raising a family. How many you actually saw that coming?

For those who also read my Valter/Selena support conversation fic, this was kind of a spoiler to their epilogue…in a way. And just to as a little tidbit, Amelia and Caellach's son, Taigā, is 'tiger' in Japanese. I found the name very apropos.

I thank everyone for sticking with me till the very end of this story and here's a giant thank-you for those who reviewed throughout the entire story: Ralf Jones, Umbrielle, ice-kestrel9, and Sir Gar the Bold.

So now that we reached the end (I know, I know, so depressing) you can review, critic, favorite, etc however flamers shall miraculously find themselves in the Demon King's steaming hot cauldron, becoming monster fodder. Also, spread the Grado Heroes shipping (Caellach/Amelia) around because there needs to be more of this splendid pairing!

FYI, I have a poll up to decided my next Sacred Stones story so if you're at all curious, check it out (read the story summaries on my profile first).

Till we meet again, adieu!

_:SpeedDemon315:_


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